Thanksgiving in our new house!

What a great Thanksgiving we had! My mom and step dad arrived safely and we had a nice day together Wednesday as we spent the day getting ready for a houseful of company. My mom helped clean, Mike continued to work on the new wood floor in the foyer (which looks beatiful..), Noah burned a huge load of cardboard and limbs-much to my mothers dismay-, "You let him light fires?!?" She exclaimed as he headed out the door with the matches. My mother in law came over and baked pies with Mackenzie-seven pies!!!! My mother was amazed.."who is going to eat all that pie?" My Mom in law happily remarked, oh this is only half as many as my mama used to make on Thanksgiving..." We mixed up the famous green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole-we decided to try a new recipe from a Paula Deen cookbok Mackenzie had received from my mom. I made a hot onion dip and a pan of stuffed mushrooms-my daughter requested the mushrooms because, she says, "You only make them when we are going somewhere and we never get to eat them!!!" So this batch would be for us to eat on thanksgiving before all our company arrived!!! My mother in law was going to bake the turkey, so the only other things I needed to prepare the day of would be potatoes, corn and rolls.
For thanksgiving, Our guest list included: My mom and Stepdad, Mike's parents and his brothers Paul and John, my sister in law, Julia and our nieces, Anna, Maggie, Evie and Bridget.
Mike's Uncle Tom, His grown children, Thomas, Andi and Mary, Mary husband Shawn and their 2 children, Jay and brand new baby Jordyn, Uncle Tom's best friend's, Porfilio and Joan, and their two college age daughters, Sanina and Kayla, and their 10 year old son Travis. And later in the day, our old next door neighbor from our old house, "Mr Butch", came by for some pie and coffee. Did I mention we had pie? oh my goodness...forget the pie...we had so much food! Joan brought enough food to feed an army, Salad, a HUGE pan of homemade cinnamon rolls, cranberry relish, stuffing, pumpkin bars and fruit and cream cheese cake bars. Shawn made a big pan of homemade mac and cheese. It was such a spread! It was great to have everyone in our new home..something we did not dream we would be doing a year ago. After eating, everyone migrated to the hill out back and the notorious zipline. Who knew grown ups could be so entertained with a zipline??? All the kids (young and old) had a turn, as well as every adult, except for uncle tom, my mom in law and my step dad...party poopers!! Even the neighbors came down the hill between our houses with their thanksgiving company to try it out!!! We all laughed till we cried, then we went inside and ate some more! travis and Noah went fishing off our dock, and Uncle Tom broke out his guitar, as he always does. Andi's birthday was today, so we had cake and sang happy birthday to her. I think I caught some of my children absent-mindedly singing, "Happy dry panties...." It was a great day. I'm so thankful that my mom and stepdad could be here, and I'm so thankful for Mike's big family. And by the way, no one even noticed that the foyer floor wasn't finished!