Wrapping Up (Mitchell Family #4.5)(10)
Author: Jennifer Foor

Colt rushed into the room. "What’s goin’ on?"

"I just caught these two playing on the roof."

Colt started heading toward Noah and I knew he wanted to punish him good. Bella started crying and threw herself in between them. "Please don’t beat us Uncle Colt. We were just trying to make it snow."

Colt looked back at me and held his hands up in the air. I knelt down in front of the kids. "If either of you would have fallen off that roof you would have been killed. This will never happen again! Do you both understand me?"

They put their little heads down and nodded them.

"Get your tails downstairs. Your butts are not to go anywhere unless you ask me first, got it?" Colt meant business and Noah knew it.

He and Bella started following Colt down the stairs as I followed behind them. "Sorry Mom."

I put my hands on his shoulders. "Please don’t ever do something like that again. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to the two of you. Now unless you want to not see each other very often, you need to start making better decisions when you are together. You are both old enough to have known not to go out that window."

"Told you Noah!" Bella pushed him.

She didn’t have to say that for me to know it was all his idea. He had gotten the idea from some Disney channel show he watched last week. When we watched it, I’d even considered reminding him that it was a horrible idea, but I’d made the mistake thinking my son knew better, obviously he was a Mitchell and they made their own rules up as they went.

I walked into the kitchen and saw it was only ten in the morning and I started to think that maybe having Thanksgiving dinner was a bad idea.

What else could possibly go wrong?

Chapter 6

Colt

After knocking over the damn turkey fryer and then climbing out his window and playing on the roof, my son was definitely on my bad side. It never failed, when he and Bella got together there was bound to be some kind of drama, or injury. I don’t think they even realized the severity of what they had done. In both circumstances they could have seriously been hurt or even killed. Suppose that fryer had been on, or if one of them fell off the roof.

Thankfully, Ty and Miranda took the news the same as I did. They took Bella into one of the rooms upstairs and really let her have it. I knew they were just as afraid as I was. Bella came down the stairs in tears, still sobbing loudly, like she had been spanked and I knew more than anyone that Ty could never do that to his daughter.

Between my mother and my Aunt Karen, the twins were being lugged around like baby dolls. Savanna’s mother was no better. Since she’d arrived, I hadn’t got to spend any time with my baby girl. My father-in-law loved hanging out with Noah and since he and Bella were always a package deal, he was used to appeasing the two of them. Because going with him would keep them safer than if they were alone, I decided to let them off of their restriction for a little while.

Savanna and Miranda were in the kitchen trying to get the two turkeys ready. Since the store was too far away and all of the oil was now laying in the backyard, we had to take one of the turkeys to my mother’s to cook. Lucy was already on standby waiting for one of us guys to deliver it to her. Last year, Savanna had discovered those oven bags that you cook with. I was skeptical, but it produced the most moist turkey, aside from the fryer, and cooked in half the normal baking time.

Once the two women got the first turkey in a bag, Ty and Conner took it over to the main house. Savanna got the remaining turkey in the oven and rubbed her hands together. I patted my wife on the ass. "Looks like the most important part of the meal is taken care of."

"Yep, and half the side dishes just need to be heated. I’d say we were off to a good start."

I looked out into the living room and laughed. "As long as nothing else goes wrong."

I knew that my wife was on one of her missions to get everything done in time for dinner, so I leaned over and kissed her before heading back to the living room.

Once the football games started, the men congregated in front of the television, while the women hung out in the kitchen. Of course, my mother’s kitchen was a whole lot bigger than ours. I think since my mother still wanted to be the host, she and my aunt were staying at the other house to prepare more food, to help Savanna without getting on her nerves. It wasn’t like my wife was going to turn down the help. She knew she was getting in over her head with our family.

The guys started filling the room when it got closer to kickoff and I could smell Savanna’s jalapeño poppers cooking in the oven. Leave it to my wife to think of football snacks when she was running around in crazy mode already. Miranda was there to help her, so Ty and I were on baby duty.

My father-in-law had just gotten back and the kids were all rallied up about what they had discovered on the nature adventure. Savanna’s dad rolled his eyes as the children went into vivid detail about their travels. I particularly liked hearing the part where my son said he saw where a buck had scraped a tree and noted where I could find it. Even though I was still upset with him from earlier, I was more than pleased that my son loved to hunt. I couldn’t help but smile and pull him in for a hug.

Once the game got started, us men couldn’t help but get rowdy. Just as an eighty yard punt return was in the making, Miranda came in with a giant tray of piping hot snacks. My father-in-law went to stand up and throw his arms in the air over a flag not being called and instead smacked the tray of hot food, causing it to fly up into the air and attack everyone as it fell and made contact with everything and everyone in the room.

Miranda scrambled to pick up the mess as Bella began screaming that a hot pepper filled with cream cheese was on her. Instead of shaking it off her arm, she began screaming and holding it out for everyone to see. Ty, who was already holding one of his sons, scooted down and managed to remove the burning hot food. He maneuvered his son in one arm, while sticking his daughter’s arm in his mouth to sooth the burn. Real tears were pouring out of her eyes and while I felt horrible for her, someone else caught my attention.

Savanna’s father was standing a few feet away from me. His head was covered in cream cheese filled peppers and other items that had been on the tray. He was trying his best to remove everything without making a huge mess, but it was utterly impossible to do. Miranda started grabbing the peppers off of his burnt head and apologizing.

I started laughing even after I got dirty looks for it. It was just so comical.

My poor wife walked into the room seconds later with her hand over her mouth and a baby on her hip. "Oh my God! What happened?"