It’s Thanksgiving week which means all things Turkey and Tradition. Finn has been doing a lot of art projects both at home and at school. He loves to talk about the feathers and what is he thankful for.  Griffin and I headed to Mansfield on Tuesday evening with Lily so we could be there to begin our annual Hosta Seed planting festivities with Dad on Wednesday morning. Each year we seem to get a bit less planted as we take several breaks to eat and sit and stretch – we are getting older! But it is a fun time that I look forward to each year. The Bethune’s were there too and there was much cousin chaos and fun times with Grandpa as always. I wanted to make a pecan pie this year so I thought it would be fun to have the kiddos help. They each had a part in adding an ingredient and then helping with the mixing and dumping into the pie plate. It turned out delish. Kevin came up Wednesday evening and on Thursday morning we enjoyed tasty Turkey cinnamon rolls to start our day. We then headed to Enon for the Armstrong Thanksgiving where we enjoyed a delicious first meal. Griffin also loves playing with his second cousins, who are all a bit older than he is (Ora wasn’t there this year), and he also loves to go see and feed the horses. Afterwards we returned to Mansfield for our second feast of the day. Early the next morning we got up and headed to Bob Evans to begin our traditional Black Friday shopping and dining affair.  Finn likes to take part in the Bethune bedtime routine, as he typically goes to bed a bit later, but he enjoys getting his jammies on at the same time and listening to stories with his cousins.  Saturday is game day, OSU versus The Team up North so in order to prepare Griffin and I made some tasty OSU cupcake treats. Then we lounged on the couch and relaxed :).  The game was very exciting this year, especially at the end. Thankfully the Buckeyes got the Win.  On Sunday after church we headed for our traditional trip to Cackler’s Family Tree Farm in Delaware to pick out our Christmas tree.  This might be the fastest we’ve ever found the tree we liked best! We found a lovely 13 1/2′ tall Cannan Fir within 5 minutes of arriving at the first field we looked at. Amazing! Kevin brought his battery powered saw this year to make life easier, however, it died shortly after he started using it!  Ruh, roh! Lucking others were nearby who were done with their saws so we borrowed theirs. Finn enjoyed being able to help his Dad cut down the tree.  It was so long that it didn’t really haul very well in the tiny sled so this year Kevin ended up asking one of the workers to help him carry it to the barn to get the needles shaken out (since we had to go through gravel to get there and didn’t want to take home a ton of gravel to our family room!). It all worked out great and while Kevin was securing the tree to the Jeep Griffin enjoyed playing in the corn and the other fun things in the kids area. 

This was a heavy tree!! Kevin and I were able to get it inside after he mounted the tree stand to it out on the patio. We brought it in (had to move literally all the furniture out of our path to get it in) and then slowly set it upright. It was so tall it scraped the ceiling this year! So I headed up to the loft, Kevin leaned the tree inward to the loft, and I trimmed off the leaders so the star would fit.  We now know our limit is 13 1/2′! We love the tree though and Finn thought it was soon cool to set it up.