Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving 2011 was at my parent's home with Aaron and Leigh Anne, my parents, my brother and our clan.... sooo thankful for my family! My sister and Christopher alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas between Arizona and Georgia with Christopher's family... so they will be joining us for Christmas this year!

"Daniel, Smile for mommy!"

"Okay, not a silly smile... "

The Princess...

So, my mom is an an amazing Grandma... so much so that Katelyn prefers her over me any day or any time.... ALWAYS! Katelyn screams, cries and everything else when my mom leaves, etc. As soon as she sees my mom she twists herself out of my arms and runs to Grandma and throws herself at her... it is very funny! She loves my dad but just to give a hug to and say Hi then she wants Grandma and she will get really mad at whoever is trying to hold her back!

My mom has lots of picture frames on her fireplace and this is one of Katelyn's favorite places in their whole house... she pulls herself on to one of these ottomons and she names every person in the picture... some people really puzzle her because she has no idea who they are or she sees some family pictures that are before her time here on earth and she wants to know where she is:) She is also confused by Daniel's baby pictures:) Daniel just now understands why he is not in our wedding pictures... that has bothered him FOREVER!

Above is her "posing" again:)

When this girl is tired... it is sippy cup, silky and thumb!

The next day... BLACK FRIDAY... has to be one of my favorite days of the entire year! It is the day we decorate for Christmas... this has been a tradition in my house forever and I love it! If you know me, I LOVE traditions so "Black Friday" shopping sounds fun because I love a bargain but it would totally cramp my tradition! I totally wouldn't have enough time or energy to work on getting our house festive! A few years ago, Brendon read me a blog about someone whose wife has a storage unit for their Christmas decorations alone and hires a team of decorators the weekend after Thanksgiving to help her decorate for Christmas... at the time he read it to me, it sounded excessive and crazy.... for some reason, I thought about that blog post a lot this year and kept thinking that doesn't sounds so crazy after all! I kind of think I like that idea... LOL!
So, these were my two precious kiddos in their Santa hats helping me decorate... although it looks like they were taking a lunch break:)

Sometimes we have special nights with Daniel where we put Katelyn to bed and let him stay up with us and do something special... this night he wanted me to make him Hot Chocolate in his special cup (the mug Brendon had growing up as a child) and play Candyland... in his Christmas jammies!