Thankful, but no turkey, please!

As much as I LOVE the turkey day and am passionate about celebrating it as its own true holiday BEFORE Christmas begins, I failed miserably in the department of "photography".  Regardless of that, we had a very nice, "cozy" day here with Mamaw Pam, Mamaw Eunice, and Papaw, a fun dinner with the extended Childers family, and then a fun filled weekend in Georgia!

Due to some previously determined bargaining agreements, Gary started the day in the woods...in a tree...what he was doing there is beyond my understanding...but that's where he was. :)  Meanwhile, the girls and I started the morning off in PERFECT Macy's day parade style...well, actually, we get up earlier than that these days...so we started with Mickey Mouse clubhouse...but at least there was a Thanksgiving theme for that too!

After some cuddle time on the couch, we proceeded to our next morning activity...COOKIES!  Given my status as a mom, I felt like it was finally the point in my life where I needed to try something I'd never done before...Gingerbread Men...the girls had a great time helping make the cookies, and weren't at all bashful about adding icing and eating them up...but Gary and I are pretty sure I should stick to my standard "drop" cookies and not get so crazy...a little "misshapen" and kinda weird tasting, but the girls didn't care, and that's what mattered most!

We headed to mom and dad's for a big lunch, and luckily afterward, the other 3 members of my family passed out for a decent nap.  My annoyingly napless personality decided to go for a run instead.  It was a PERFECT day, at least!  After that, we headed to Aunt Judy's, and  I was pleasantly surprised to see my girls actually get in the floor and play with their cousins...or at least their cousins' toys!! :)  (When is it that this "parallel play" phase REALLY ends again?)  When dinner time came, they did sample SMALL bites of just about everything...but turkey was NOT their favorite food...not sure how they can be related to me, but some things have to just be accepted as WEIRD! :)

On Friday morning, we got up bright and early to make our trip to Gainesville.  This was one of those times when we all REALLY appreciated our use of Mr Greg's plane, and we landed in just about an hour!  We hung with the family for the weekend, and mostly just stayed around the house, hung out by a few campfires, and let the kids PLAY, PLAY, PLAY!  These girls love their Haley and Noah!!  Mimi was kind enough to do some babysitting, and gave us time to hang out with the brother and sister in laws, and I even accomplished a few errands!

Building up to the big day itself, I spent part of the month of November (unfortunately I was a slacker for the other part) talking through the concept of being thankful with the girls.  Since they're so little, and have to really learn the concept, my approach was to ask them, and if they didn't have an answer on their own (which they surprisingly did on more than one occassion), give them a few options of things they might be thankful for, so that they could take their pick one thing each day.  We'd then put it on a paper, they'd color it, we'd put it on the wall in the toy room, and we'd try to actually talk about that "thing" and why we were thankful...sometimes more attentively than others.  All in all, it turned out to be quite an interesting little experiment, and I think they got the point, probably more than I realize!  Since I feel like the list is worth hanging onto, here it is - 1 - Baby Jesus (Both) 2 - Peanut Butter and Jelly (Both) 3- Doctors (who are helping Papaw) (Both) 4 - Mommy and Daddy (Both) 5 - sister (Both) 6 - Baby Dolls (Both) 7 - Cousins (Macy) 8 - Candy (Makayla) 9 - Pumpkins (Makayla) 10 - Marley (Macy) 11 - The sunshine and the moon (Makayla) 12 - Cheerios (Macy) 13 - Her Playhouse (Makayla) 14 - Tacos (Macy) 15 - Mamaw and Papaw and Mimi and Papa (Both) 16 - Cupcakes (Makayla) 17 - Ice Cream at Haley and Noah's house (Macy) 18 - Cars we have at our house (Makayla) 19 - her nice warm bed (Macy) 20 - Friends at school (both)...Pretty good list, if I do say so myself!

We are SOOO blessed!!