Happy Thanksgiving!

We spent Thanksgiving in Tampa this year. We are so blessed with sweet and wonderful family surrounding us!
Coloring at Mema and Papa's house on Thanksgiving morning.


Jeff and Randy carving the turkey.

Thanksgiving Break!

What a fabulous time we had for Thanksgiving this year! We decided to skip out of town a day early to get on up to Alabama. It was nice to have extra time, even if it was just a day. So we drove up on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we went out to Lindsey and Chris' new house, which they are now living in. We got to see it all decorated for Christmas - gorgeous!!!

Wednesday night, we headed down to Montgomery to spend the night with Ma-don, my grandmother. Thursday morning, we switched holidays for a couple hours and celebrated Christmas while everyone was together. (We will be at our house on Christmas day and then in Tampa with Jeff's folks, so we had an early Alabama Christmas). All the girls got spoiled with lots of gifts. Elianna fell in love with bows! Mama, does this picture remind you of Lindsey when she was little? I can just see her so much in Maryella here.
After we cleaned up the Christmas wrapping paper, it was time to get back to Thanksgiving. The girls made a quick wardrobe change and we were all set. Lindsey's orange glazed turkey was SOOOOOO yummy! Kaylin helped Max butter the rolls.After lunch, several members of the household decided it was time for the tradition Thanksgiving afternoon nap.
We drove back up to Alabaster that evening and headed to bed pretty quickly because the next day promised to be a fun one with the ladies going black Friday shopping. Me, Mama and Lindsey got up at 3:30 am and headed to Target, Walmart, Belk and other places and found a few good deals. Nothing jaw dropping, but we had lots of fun and that's what really counts. Sorry, no pictures of our early morning craziness, we forgot the cameras. Hey, it was 3:30 am! Can you blame us? We were back home in time for the famous Iron Bowl. My family are all Alabama fans, but I married an Auburn boy, so much to my dad's dismay, I switched loyalties. We had a fun time watching the game. It was a good game and pretty close, but Alabama won in the end. That night, we took my brother, Max, out for his birthday. He's 30 this year! He picked a Japanese place to eat and the girls, even Elianna, were totally mezmerized by watching the guy cook in front of us. The girls looked beautiful dressed in some of their new clothes they got for Christmas. When they made the big fire, Maryella slowly crawled over to my mom's lap, it was funny.

Saturday, my dad and Jeff took the three big girls on a train ride while me, my mom and Elianna slept off a bit of a stomach bug. They had a great time and even got to see Santa! Although, I'm not so sure Maryella was very thrilled with that treat. She cowered by the window while the other two gave the big guy a hug.

Sunday, and time to go home came too fast. It always makes me sad to leave family. I miss them so much when I'm not there! But we made tons of memories to talk and laugh about to get us through until the next visit!

My Little Pilgrim

Annlee had her Thanksgiving Feast at school on Friday. She was dressed as a pilgrim and was oh so cute! Here's a video of a song they sang about November.

Maryella had her Thanksgiving Feast at preschool today. Here is some of the artwork that she made for the day... a handprint turkey and a pretty placemat she decorated.

Here she is eating her feast!

Here is a video of a song they've been practicing called "Mr. Turkey". And it seems to truly be about a turkey and not a cow, for those of you on Facebook!

And another video of the class saying the blessing before eating. Please excuse the nose picking - oops!

And one last video of a little song they sang before going home.

Thanksgiving in Tampa

Last Tuesday, Annlee had her Thanksgiving Feast and then as soon as Kaylin got out of school, we drove down to Tampa and stayed through Saturday to celebrate Thanksgiving with Jeff's side of the family. It was such a great trip and we had tons of fun. Maryella didn't want to leave and kept saying that she really wanted to stay at Mema and Papa's house.

Other than the traditional Thanksgiving meal, we also went to see Madagascar 2, which was really cute. Kaylin and Annlee loved it and Maryella made it through all but the last 20-30 minutes or so. We also took advantage of the Black Friday sales. Jeff and I got up on Friday (not too early - I promise, maybe about 8:30ish or so) and we left the girls with Mema and Papa. We got just about all of our Christmas shopping done! Whew! Glad to have that behind us. Last night, I got about 2/3rds of it wrapped, so it's really "beginning to feel a lot like Christmas" around here! I love it!

Here's a few pictures from our trip...

Kaylin helps Aunt Sandi get the cranberry sauce ready.

Happy Turkey Day!

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family up in Alabama! We stayed with my grandmother in Montgomery for the first hald of our trip and it was so good to have all of our family together! That doesn't happen a whole lot these days. In this picture, Annlee and Kaylin are in front with my grandmother. Standing behind them are Jeff, my mom, me, Maryella, Trista (Max's wife), Max, my dad, Lindsey and her husband, Chris.
We ate all the yummy traditional Thanksgiving food and really enjoyed one another.
We usually have some sort of fruit salad or congealed salad, but this year, we made this cute fruit turkey! Gobble, gobble!
You can't see them very well, but Annlee and I made some really cute napkin rings. We took everyone's picture and cut them out and made them into pilgrims!
My pretty Kaylin playing in my grandmother's backyard. I have pictures of me playing in this same tree when I was younger.


My mom, my grandmother and I are making a quilt together. It's called a yo-yo quilt because it's made of lots of little circles. We layed all the pieces out on the floor to decide how it should go together. Now I'm working on sewing it together. My mom and grandmother are working on helping my sister make one. What wonderful family heirlooms these will be!