Thanksgiving

I am so far behind with blogging... I have five days left before I go back to work, and I have been trying so hard to soak up every darn minute with my kiddos before I do! That means my nights are spend Christmas shopping (thanks, Amazon Prime!), and catching up on laundry and email and Parenthood. I have also been battling eleven kidney stones ("eleven" said in my best Spinal Tap voice) and a kidney infection that just keeps coming back.

But we had a PERFECT Thanksgiving this year! I was a little stressed out in anticipation of the holiday, since last Thanksgiving weekend was when we lost baby Violet. But there is no better medicine than spending time with loved ones... and food.

The girls each had a Thanksgiving feast on the Friday before their Thanksgiving break. It was also pajama day - so I came up there to see Sophia the pajama-clad Native American ha!

It was funny, after the kids got done eating, the grown-ups made their way through the line to eat up all the vegetables that were left.

Sophia and her best friend Claire - it's pretty much impossible to get a non-silly picture of these two.

Sophia wanted to come with me to visit Amelia's class. It was the sweetest thing in the world, to see how proud of Sophia Amelia was - she ran up and hugged her and then told everyone "this is my sister!"

Sophia holding court with the four year olds ha ha! She was pretty proud of herself too.

Thanksgiving Wednesday I spent the whole day at Davis's brother's house cooking and baking while our kids ran around and relatives trickled in from out of town. At the end of the day everyone came over to our house for beef stew, which I'd thrown in the crock pot that morning. Davis and his siblings stayed up by the fire in the backyard long after I went to bed.

Thursday is was so, so cold and cloudy outside, which made for a perfect day to stay by a big fire and eat and eat and eat and visit with family!

My main contribution to the meal was this healthier green bean casserole that I saw in Southern Living magazine - YES healthy and Southern Living. It was yummy and sooo much better than anything involving soggy canned green beans!

Baby Wyatt was never put down from Wednesday morning until Friday night. Not once. That child was passed from one set of arms to another. Then Saturday I tried to lay him down to do come laundry and he would have NONE of that! Just the way the baby baby of the whole family is supposed to be :)

And then Sunday baby Wyatt went to church for the first time and was welcomed by the congregation. This picture - "hey Davis, take a picture of me with the baby before we leave." Ugh.

"Wait! I'll take another one!"
"No! We're late!"
Ha ha!

The girls are good for picture-taking

but add two little boys and this is what you get

Being at our new church with our new baby, it was a perfect and fitting end to the weekend. So much has changed in the past year, it is overwhelming. But it is also a reminder of we have to be thankful for!