...And Ever Thankful Are We

Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year. At school we make the faithful floppy turkey hat and bid our darlings adieu a little early, and then normally as we kick off our shoes at home we work on getting the house ready for Christmas. We have our first annual viewing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and we put up the tree. This year we did things a little out of our traditional order, but we had just as much fun.

In the evening we went to Uncle Don and Aunt Deanna's to sing happy birthday to Liam and when we came home we spent quite some time contemplating how to get the Christmas tree IN the new living room....and pretty much, developing the plan of attack was all we accomplished on Wednesday.

Thursday we got up and finished packing for our weekend in Kendallville, Indiana then headed to Uncle Don and Aunt Deanna's for lunch.

Here's Grant and the new big brother himself, Caleb. Brian and Sara were released from the hospital with baby Colton later on Thursday. Talk about celebrating turkey day! :)

After lunch we threw the munchkins in the car and started driving....and driving...and driving. We watched movies....and movies....and movies, including Home Alone, which evidently Landon finds a bit scary. I just happened to turn around and catch him like this....when I asked what was wrong he said that 'that heater downstairs in Kevin's house is scary!'

When we made it to Uncle Bob and Aunt Lou's house the boys were so ready to wiggle that they were more like monkeys than boys, and who can blame em.


First things first.....where is that Baby Jack?! Awww, there he is....all decked out in his Gobble wear. And here he is with his new custom blankie. Landon, scoot that down....a babe's gotta breathe!

Uncle Bob and Aunt Lou had picked up a marble toy for the boys, which is fun for the whole family. Anything that can keep Grant's attention for 15 solid minutes is definitely a good find. Now, to keep him from attempting to EAT the marbles, that's our next feat.

After a good night's sleep the next day brought some Play-Dohing,

some cake baking,

some more baby holding, and roll eating,

peace making with the knight,


story reading,

and the ever popular, mulch mound hopping.

We got in a few rounds of card playing, but accepted the reality that having children in the house under the age of 5 really cuts down on 'pounce' time.

Chad took in some Rocket Football and was able to watch the boys win a back to back state title, and even Jack got to see it. :)

The whole weekend was just knock out fun! Who DOESN'T love a good one gloved boxing match anyway?! (PS, Aunt Lou is a fine actress, really...I promise there were no Aunts harmed in the making of this blog entry)

It was so fun to get to see everyone and have fun together!