Thanksgiving, 2016 (Saturday)

Oh goodness, I don't really want to write about this day.  I think as far as all Kennedys are involved, we would like to completely forget that this day ever happened.  However, it's good to remember that the bad makes us appreciate the good, right?

The day started off with a bang.  I was upstairs, ready to come down, thinking, "Gosh, I wish Hannie would make us breakfast," when within minutes, Allison and Mark walked through the back hall door with groceries in hand, ready to make breakfast!  And it was our favorite Kennedy kind of breakfast:  blini with fresh fruit, bacon and sausage.  Oh so good.  I will admit that it has been such a treat having the kids cooking over the weekend.  It's just so nice not to eat my food all the time (and not need to prepare every meal either).

Then, it was picture time.  We need a Kennedy family picture for the Christmas card, and this was the one day to make it happen.  Unfortunately, I was three days out from getting my hair cut and colored, so I wasn't too happy with any picture of me, but everyone else always looks so great.  Of course, I planned these pictures before Mark told me that he thought we should just use one of our family pictures from Ireland.  Great idea, except Baby has changed so much in six months.  In honor of this being Hannah's last family picture for a while, we picked purple (her favorite color) as the "pop" color.  I was skeptical that it would come together, but it did brilliantly.  Even John, after he had gotten dressed (in his "navy" sweater which was in all actuality black) found a purple shirt when he saw all of us in purple.  Aside from hair, and from the fact that we took the pics in the exact same place as last year, they turned out great.  Seriously, we spend less than a minute taking our actual family pictures, and the other ten minutes taking the "real" Kennedy pictures.  Here are some of the highlights (that won't make the Christmas card cut):

This is the stinking cutest little family on the planet <3

I worry a LOT about the size of my "boobage" in photographs.  So here the girls are, helping me out...

Same here :-)

Baby's photobomb is the BEST!

I love this baby!

So Cheese might need a tutorial on dabbing...

It's either Mark, Glo, or Hannah.... every time.  #oldestkidskeeptherules #goethan

You've heard of the book "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie..."?  This picture is titled "If you Give Mark the Camera..."

I think I got ONE picture of the two of them, looking normal....

Rebecca is OWNING this picture!

Probably my favorite one of the day.

It never ends....

Finally, we picked up a Chick-fil-A party platter on the way home, because there was a showdown going on.  Michigan versus Ohio State.

We quickly changed into our Michigan finery and took our seats.  Ethan was off-the-charts nervous, but I didn't feel much of that.  As he says, I grew up in the time when Michigan beat Ohio State nine times out of ten, so I don't have many doubts about our dominance.  However, Ethan has witnessed only one game where Michigan won, so he was on pins and needles.

I honestly don't want to recap the game, because nothing really matters in the end except the score.  And even that I won't post.  We did end up going into double overtime, and we lost.

Words can't express the sadness in our house.  There was disappointment like I haven't felt before.  The season had been so great, and we honestly had great hopes that we would end up in the national championship game.

Of course, the football gods decided to add insult to injury by allowing Penn State to beat Michigan State in a game later that night.

We still had the plan to cut our tree at the Christmas Tree farm, but wouldn't you know it?  It was closing as we got there, and the man in charge refused to let us just run out into the field and cut down a tree.  Because, you know, our day hadn't been crappy enough.

We had all these great plans of getting a "school" family picture, and several items were bought specifically for this purpose, but trust me, these smiles are completely fake.  I think Allison's smile says it all...

Again, I forced everyone to take the traditional wreath picture, but Baby wasn't having any of it.  So, she had to sit on the sidelines.  Kind of like Michigan in the championship game....

So for the first time in a very long time, we picked a pre-cut tree.  I didn't even care what it looked like.  And the same man in charge lectured us about tying our tree to a vehicle that didn't have a luggage rack.  *eye roll*

So we promised our lives away to just let us have the dang, pre-cut Christmas tree, and John left it to the boys to tie it to the car.  Making sure that they had it secured, they ended up rolling down the windows in the car, but leaving the doors shut while they tied it up.  Think about it.  We ended up imitating the Dukes of Hazard, trying to get back into the car.

Oh goodness.

And by this time, we were so dang tired that the last thing we wanted to do was put up the Christmas decorations, but gosh darn it, everyone was leaving the next day and I knew it would take me days to do what my army of helpers could do in a few short hours.  So I taskmastered them into working, and we got it done, bad Christmas tree lights and all.

You would think that would be the end of our troubles, but when John came down in the morning, the tree had fallen over, and some of our most treasured ornaments were broken.  In fact, while John tried to straighten the tree himself (while the rest of us slept in), it fell over a second time.

Like I said, not a day we really want to remember, but hey, it's life.  We'll get 'em next time, right?