Last Thanksgiving Together

Happy Thanksgiving! Today was such a fun day. I started off by getting up bright and early and going to my Body by Banks class. Holy cow, that is a good workout. I talked to Stacy for awhile before class started. Her boy is on a mission in Spain right now. She asked if we were supposed to get Stockton a phone. We are. She says it's the greatest. They set up Jackson's phone on Google photos. Anytime he takes a picture it gets uploaded there. She basically gets pictures from him everyday. I'm so excited! We are definitely doing that! I got to spend the rest of the day with my little family. It was so great to have my family together all day long. We ate, laughed, played, laughed, slept, laughed. It was perfect.

Pumpkin Turkey

 Repurposed from Riley

We went to see Wreck It Ralph, Ralph Breaks the Internet this afternoon. The Draper Theater is pretty cool. All of the seats are reclining. They were super comfortable too. The movie was good. Not super good, just good. I stayed awake, I think. Mike kept mentioning parts that I didn't remember. He claims I fell asleep, I really don't think I did. Except during the previews, but who needs to see those. Jorja was making fun of me for not being able to make it past the previews though. I really think I watched the entire movie. I just don't remember every little detail like the rest of my family. We stayed during the credits and watched a little extra thing that made us laugh. Then they had the rest of the credits. Mike and the girls left. I stayed with the boys until the bitter end. There was a Frozen 2 preview at the end. Then when the cursor clicked on it Ralph showed up singing the Rick Roll song. It was so funny. Preston was laughing so hard and was sad Mike missed it. We tried to take a family photo after the movie. Mike set his phone on a timer for this.

Stephanie, Preston, Jorja, Mike, Maysen, Stockton

 A worker asked if she could take one for us. She tried, but it was still on a timer. It was so funny!

Mike, Stephanie, Preston, Jorja, Maysen, Stockton

We tried to get another family photo once we got home. Jorja even went to find her selfie stick. Too bad Preston wasn't cooperating. He did not want to get his picture taken. At all. Oh the joys of twelve year olds.

Mike, Preston, Jorja, Stockton, Maysen, Stephanie

 Mike, Stockton, Jorja, Stephanie, Preston, Maysen

The next event of the day was the cooking. Mike took care of most of it, thank heavens. Jorja made the most delicious mashed potatoes I have ever had. I made rolls, too bad they didn't finish in time. Everyone was stuffed by the time the rolls were out of the oven. While we were cooking, Jorja asked what kind of pie we had. Apple. We decided to only get one this year. Jorja was aghast. She wanted chocolate. Apparently chocolate pie is her favorite thing about Thanksgiving. Who knew? Jorja drove me to the store and we picked up a chocolate pie twenty minutes before they closed. Crisis averted.

Mike

 Back of Jorja

 Mike, Jorja, Stockton, Maysen, Preston

 Post Thanksgiving nap ~ Mike, Quacky Chan, Jorja's arm

 Kiki & Jorja

 Stockton and Preston played a lot of Nintendo Switch together. Much to Preston's delight.

Stockton, Preston, Maysen

 Jorja & Kiki

 I thought it was funny that the game said 'You got a moon' when clearly it is a star.

We played 5ive Straight as teams. Maysen & Mike, Stockton & Preston, Jorja and me. There was one time that Maysen and Mike would win if they could put a card in the one slot. Only two cards would work, a one and a zero. We were teasing Maysen. We knew she had the zero because she looked so suspicious. It was so funny!

Maysen

Preston had his turn right before Maysen and he happened to have the one. We laughed and laughed. It only took two seconds for Maysen to have another run put together. This time only the zero could win, which was obviously her. Stockton put a peg in another spot so they had four in a row. Mike needed to stop them, but he had no cards. I only had one card. It needed to be lower than a 58. It was a 98. So, Stockton and Preston ended up winning. Maysen was robbed. It was pretty funny though. Our next game was Apples to Apples. I won that one, even though Preston had his duck on his team.

Quacky Chan & Preston

Jorja wanted to practice driving her car down to Chick-Fil-A. Mike and I went with her. It was pretty dark and rainy, but Jorja did fantastic. She didn't stall the car once! She is becoming a lot more confident driving a stick. She is going to love it when this becomes second nature to her. Jorja also posted a few cute pictures. On Instagram she had a grateful for her eight best friends. One of her and Hailey, then Dessa, then Madison. The last one was us. I'm glad she loves us so much, because we all adore her.

 Maysen, top of Preston's head, Jorja, Stockton, Stephanie, Mike

She posted the next one on her private Snapchat story. I asked if I could post it here. I am so proud of how hard Jorja has worked to get emotionally stable. She is right, she is in an infinitely better place than she was a year ago. We joked with her about 'the new love she found'. Totally sounds like a boy. She was talking about how she has learned to love herself. Haha. She does have a crush on a boy right now, but that is not what she meant. I love how she has a picture of her and Evan on the post. They don't interact as much now as they did last year, but man did he help her through some tough times. I will always love that boy. The other two pictures are Hailey and Madison. Both are gems. Love, love, love them.