Thanksgiving!

I am sure that every single one of you spent a lot of your day wondering.... "How do the Arend Family spend their Thanksgiving?"

Well worry no longer, I am here to answer that question for you.

It has become a tradition that our amazing friends, The Carlsons, come over with their sweet Grandma and we hang out and eat too much good food. 

This year, Emily decided we should play a game. (Thats Emily for ya, always wanting to play a game) She thought that Minute To Win It would be a fun game. She was right! Minute to win it is a game where you are given a task you must complete in 60 seconds.  If you dont do so, you dont get a point and your team is sad and goes and cries for hours and hours.  Okay, maybe not hours. We were broken out into two teams...
 Team 1: Dad, Mrs. Carlson, Brenna, Alex, and Thomas
Team 2: Emily, Mr. Carlson, Mom, Beth, and Me
We had 5 games. Whoever had the most points at the end of the games won a prize. 

The first game was called Candeleir. My dad represented Team 1 and I proudly played for Team 2. You have to make a stack of cups and paper plates. You must use 15 cups and 5 plates. 

 My dad won. His stood and was beautiful. Mine fell but was still beautiful. 

Then, we had the game, This Blows.  You have 15 plastic cups and one balloon. You have to blow the balloon up and then let the air out and blow the cups off the counter.  Alex played for Team Uno and Mr. Carlson for Team Dos.  Mr. Carlson blew up that balloon and knocked the cups off in no time at all! WAY TO GO MR. CARLSON!!!!!!!! HE WON! WOOO HOOO!  We dont have a picture of Alex playing this game. What a bummer...

Next up, Noodling Around.  Mrs. Carlson for Team 1 and Mom for Team 2.  You have a spaghetti noodle in your mouth and have to get 5 penne noodles on that one noodle without the spaghetti noodle breaking or one of the penne noodles falling off. 

Mom won. WOOT WOOT!

Match Maker was up next in line.  You have 18 cups with M&M's underneath it.  You have to pick up the cup, take the M&M and then put it in the right station.  For example, if you pick up the cup and there is a red M&M then you would run and put it in the red cup. You have to go through all of the cups before a minute is up. 

Thomas won! Way to go buddy!

Then we had Junk in the Trunk.  You have to tie a tissue box around your waist.  You have to put 6 ping pong balls inside the emptied out tissue box and shake around to get them all out.  You cant use your hands, so you have to jump around like crazy. Brenna shook for Team 1 and Emily for Team 2.  It was so funny to watch.

Next, my favorite.  Face the Cookie.  You have to put an Oreo on your forehead and move it down to your mouth using ONLY YOUR FACIAL EXPRESSIONS! You can not shake your head around or use your hands. Everyone ends up making weird face shapes and it is so much fun to watch.  Everyone played this one.

After this we went to Christmas Forrest...

 Look at my beautiful family!

 This is such a funny picture.  It just makes me laugh!

We usually come home after Christmas Forrest for some pie and some Christmas movie!  This year, we had pumkin pie, apple pie and then.... THIS.

Oh my. You can not say you have tasted something yummy until you have tried this. Then again, you cant say you have tried anything yummy until you have eatten anything made by Mrs. Carlson. She is an amazing cook/ baker.  It is Pumpkin Bread pudding. You have your pudding stuff and then this awesome vanilla sauce and then warm carmel! YUMMMMMMY! I am not a fan of pie or pudding, but this.... oh my. I think I may be asking for this on my birthday. It was the best dessert I have ever had.

Yupp... best dessert ever.

Hope you and your families had a great Thanksgiving full of fun memories. I know that mine was! Thanks Carlsons for helping make a bunch of fun Thanksgiving memories with us!