Come ye thankful people

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year in Houston surrounded by family and friends. Isabelle nearly drove us crazy as we packed for the trip asking "is it time to go" every few minutes. She was so anxious to get to Grammy's that we were on the road by 10:00am Wednesday morning.

We started our Thanksgiving morning early participating in the annual Coles Crossing Turkey Trot. We all ran in step and Belle was thrilled with her winning medal. We spent the day cooking and watching football and once Chris, Colleen and Max arrived from Ohio we enjoyed a yummy turkey dinner. Ben particularly loved the sweet potatoes, Belle thought the mashed potatoes were delicious and I was quite impressed with the salt-less stuffing! After dinner and a much loved Thanksgiving puppet show, we gathered around the newspaper and planned our attack for the highly anticipated Black Friday shopping spree.

At 4:00am my mom, Tara, Alee, Nick and I headed out for our first store and by 7:00am had successfully spent money in 4 different major stores. Once Belle awoke, she and Ben met us for a few more early morning shopping hot spots in their pajamas before we headed home to shower and get ready for the day. (We bought Belle a JEEP which we had no plans to buy, but one became available at 5:00am and I jumped on the opportunity. There was a line waiting for the JEEP's to be unloaded but Alee got a tip on the store's plan, so we walked straight to the back and picked up the last pink JEEP available. I almost got beat up but I successfully got it back to the check-out counter and Nick and Alee ran it home in between stores since we had already bought too much to fit it all in the car. We do not want to spoil Jelly, so we will probably save it until her birthday in March when it is Spring and pretty outside.) Once we were clean and "rested" Tara, Belle and I headed for the mall and were there just in time for a few more sales that lasted only through noon. Finally at nearly 2:00pm we had shopped and spent all that we had planned and made our way back home.

Grandma and Grandpa took Max and Belle to the movie BOLT while the rest of us watched Four Christmases. Isabelle was thrilled to go to the theatre, one of her favorite things, with her grandparents and cousin all by herself! Saturday was spent preparing for the Newlyweds open house. The backyard was beautiful and the food was delicious. We were threatened by rain but the evening turned out to be lovely and we had such a nice time visiting with so many friends. Nick's parents, Paul & Lynette, were able to make the trip from Colorado and we enjoyed getting to know them better and learning more about our newest family member. We were even surprised by a long-lost friend, Ryan, (and relative) who relocated to DFW and made the trip down to celebrate with us. We also loved seeing Ben's brother Sam and his wife Heather and Belle's only girl cousin Anna over the weekend at both the movie and reception.

Sunday and the end of the break came too quick and Belle was in tears saying goodbye to her favorite people. Max turned 4 years old on Sunday so we had a quick party and then packed our bags. Unfortunately, our usual 3 hour trip turned into more than 5 hours on the road as were constantly needing to stop with Belle who surprised us with a stomach bug. The poor baby started getting sick about an hour into the trip and spent the next 12 hours crying in pain and emptying her stomach like clockwork almost every ten minutes. It was an awful ride home and the three of us spent the night awake lying all together on the living room floor.

Despite the less than perfect ending, we had such a wonderful time celebrating with our family and we cherish every chance we get to spend with each of them. We are grateful we are so blessed and we are eager to get out our Christmas decorations.