Thanksgiving Traditions & Harper's Puzzle Party

This whole week I've been giddy for the long holiday weekend. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, full of family traditions. We have so much to be thankful for, our wonderful families being high on the list. 

Every year, we kickoff the start of the holiday weekend preparing for our family run fun. This year marked the 5th Annual Helleen Family Fun Run around Rice Lake. Anyone is welcome to run the 6k Thanksgiving morning with us, and every year we gain a few new participates. The night before Turkey Day, we invite everyone over to our house for pizza and t-shirt making. It's tradition that everyone decorates the back of their t-shirt with a personalized saying, and it's always good for a few laughs. This year didn't disappoint. 

Thursday morning people started filing through the door at 8am ready to run. Well, maybe not everyone was excited to run outside when it was only 22° but we all braved the cold to continue the tradition. We finished our 6k and headed back to our warm house for breakfast and festive cocktails. Breakfast is always one of my favorite meals, and the spread this year was delightful. Monkey bread is a staple at any Helleen gathering, plus we had egg bake, breakfast pizza, fruit, mimosas, spike apple cider and a bloody mary bar. The holiday was definitely starting off on the right track!

Bob and Deb were hosting Thanksgiving, and it was a big group this year. My parents decided to stay in Minnesota for the holiday so they joined us for the festivities. Dinner was delicious as always, and we opted to play our Christmas dice game a few weeks early. Nick and Austin have finals late into December, so to have most people participate in the Yankee Swap game we had to do it after Thanksgiving dinner. The gift selection was great, and the game was competitive as usual. After battling and hoping for doubles, Mitch and I ended up with some pretty good presents. 

After gifts and pie - it was time for Black Friday shopping, and I love love love this day. It gets a little frustrating that stores are opening earlier and earlier each year. You can't even call it "Black Friday" since most stores are open on Thursday. Since no one in our group is in need of the big doorbusters and spending quality time with our families is more important than deals, we opted to start our shopping experience after everyone was done celebrating. We perused the mound of ads, and laid out our shopping schedule. Bingo cards were printed, and we were ready for deals! 

9 of us hit Target around 10:00pm ready to shop! Mitch and I managed to get everything on our list, plus a few extra impulse buys. $6 movies are dangerous, I just kept throwing them in the cart. It was a total success, and the crowds were manageable. We didn't even have to wait to check out, we just walked right up! It was perfect. After Paul got his hot dog from the food stand (this is a Black Friday tradition), we headed to Wal-Mart to check out their deals. We wandered around the store, but came up short and continued on our journey. We did a drive-by Best Buy, but opted not to go in. 

We decided to throw a curve ball in our usual Black Friday plans. After a quick discussion, we all agreed to drive down to Ridgedale to check out the mall scene. This was a Black Friday first for our group, we've never ventured out of the Maple Grove area. We pulled into Macy's parking lot around 12:00am, excited to see what Ridgedale had to offer. Paul and Kody scored some great deals at Macy's so it was already proving to be a great decision. As we headed out into the mall, nearly half of the stores were open for business. Everyone was starting to fade, so naturally that meant we needed a snack. We could smell Auntie Annie's pretzels and all agreed we needed one. Sadly, that was the longest line we waited in all night. After nearly 20 minutes, we grabbed our fresh and hot pretzels, dipping sauces and diet cokes. It wasn't the best 1am decision I've ever made, but it was delicious. Nothing else was grabbing us, and the pretzel fuel could only keep us awake for so long. Our 2013 Black Friday trip was coming to an end. 

Breakfast Friday morning is another tradition, and one of my favorites. I love going out to breakfast, and 3 Squares Restaurant in Maple Grove is one of the best spots. Harper spent the night at Bob & Deb's, but since they both had to work Friday we went and picked her up before breakfast. She joined us, and indulged in the cutest Mickey Mouse pancakes. We re-capped our recent purchases, and shared a few laughs. Yet another fun, successful Black Friday in the books. We're already gearing up for next year... Mall of America!

That night we celebrated Nick's 22nd birthday with dinner, presents and cake. Harper enjoyed Nick's ice cream sundae at dinner, and was thrilled to see cake and ice cream at Gran-Gran & Pop's afterwards. She built plenty of block towers with Pops, and made a circus train with Amanda. After playing nearly an hour past bed time, we called it a night.

Our busy weekend continued Saturday with Harper's birthday celebration. Since Nick and Austin were home from college, and Harper's birthday is just 10 days before Christmas we opted to celebrate her 2nd birthday a couple weeks early.

When trying to decide on a theme, we were a little stumped. As I've mentioned before, a lot of Harper's current interests are marketed towards boys. She loves Thomas the Train, Toy Story and Finding Nemo. After spending hours on Pinterest searching for girl birthday party ideas with those themes, I wasn't finding anything. Mitch mentioned having a puzzle party since that's one of Harper's current obsessions. I loved the idea, so we ran with it.

Our family came over for a Harper inspired dinner, noodles and popcorn snacks. After dinner we cheered on the Gopher's hockey team, opened presents, and blew out her candles. Even through Harper's battling a cough and runny nose, she still managed to have a great time. She's a very lucky girl to have so many loving people share this special day with her. This morning we opened up some of her new toys, she didn't know what to play with first! 

It's been a hectic, fun, busy weekend but we wouldn't have it any other way. We're thankful to be able to share these special occasions with family and friends. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, I know we did!

Until next time...

The Helleen's