Thanksgiving

At Jacob's school the kindergarteners have a Thanksgiving feast where they dress up like Indians.  They have things like chips, apple slices and Chick Fil A nuggets.  That's right.  And I will be forever grateful for that because that year Jacob finally decided he liked Chick Fil A.

But in 3rd grade, his school steps it up.  The kids dress like Pilgrims, the parents dress like Indians, and the feast is legit with rotisserie chickens, corn bread, nuts, berries, popcorn, muffins, ham, and corn.  And they are supposed to bring a wooden plate and a tin cup to use.  Oh, and wooden utensils.  Sure.  Well, one mom came up with the utensils (think doctor office tongue depressors), and 3 other moms and myself found bamboo plates on etsy that we all went in together and bought.  I found a copper-ish looking toothbrush holder for his tin cup (I mean seriously, where were we supposed to come up with this stuff??).  And I convinced a new-to-this-school mom that other moms were going to go all out with their attire, so we had to also.  So we went to Michael's and Hobby Lobby, bearing multiple coupons for separate transactions, and bought brown shirts, beads, feathers, and fabric paint.  Yea, we were the only parents from Jacob's class to dress up.  Oh well.

This is his teacher.  She dressed up.

As you can see, all the boys really got into it.  #NOT  

The red head has his pants tucked into his socks (a suggestion from the teacher that only he accepted) to make the pants look like knickers.

 Jacob is hiding under the table, so don't bother looking for him.

 He did reappear for a moment to get this lovely trend started.  These were pumpkins they made as a craft, and they wrote what they were thankful for on them.  They doubled as table deco.  Well, and hats.  When the teacher told them to take them off their heads, a chorus of, "Jacob started it!" was heard.  Great.

 His teacher had a stash of pilgrim hats for the boys that she managed to get them to wear finally.

The other mom.

Jacob's place mat.  Decorated at each corner with turkey legs.

The wooden (bamboo) plate, the wooden (creatively shaped tongue depressors) utensils, and the tin (fake copper) cup (toothbrush holder).

Leading up to this day, they had several Pilgrim simulations.  One was them dividing into groups and getting in their "boats."  The boats are those taped off squares on the floor.  They would learn about the voyage to the new world, and every so often the captain (a different kid each time) would roll the dice.  If your number came up, you died.  

Also, each kid had to bring in a list of names of people they knew.  The kids in each group numbered all of their people and this made up their colonies.  Every so often, random numbers were (pulled? rolled?) picked and the people correlating with that number died.  Jon died on the first day.  I think I made it a couple days.  Jacob miraculously survived the whole simulation period.  He will tell you that is because he is "an awesome captain."

 Playing pilgrim (?) games.  Here they have to start the relay by doing push ups.  Pilgrims were buff.

Another game.  Trying to catch a looped string on a stick.

His teacher and me.

They had to go around the table and say what they were most thankful for.  Jacob said his parents.  This is actually him talking, totally embarrassed  :)

At home-

Our nephew Conrad is in cooking school and insisted on making the entire meal himself.  Seriously.  I brought fruit.

Homemade mac & cheese.  WITH FOUR POUNDS OF CHEESE.

Sweet potato casserole that we all thought were rolls because he used the giant marshmallows.

Green bean casserole.

Dressing with "funny little tree thingys" per Abby.

The turkey.  What.

Conrad carving.  I suggested he ask for an electric carving knife for Christmas and he looked at me like I had just committed heresy (do you commit heresy?)

About half of Jon's side of the family.

A couple of random things Morgan and Jacob said recently:

Morgan:  I love looking at myself in the mirror.  (We are looking into counseling to help with those self esteem issues).

Jacob:  There's an 80% chance I'm going to be a kicker in the NFL when I grow up.
Me:  What is the other 20%?
Jacob:  Oh, that's wide receiver...wait, make that 95% chance kicker, 5% wide receiver.  (You see how his talent increased in just that short period of time? #madskills).