Home for the Holidays, Part 1--Thanksgiving

Do you wanna know why this is "Part 1" of my Home for the Holidays series?!?!?!  It's because for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, that's exactly where we were!!  And with our families!!!!!!!!  I don't know how many exclamation points I'm going to use in these posts, but my guess is--it won't be enough to let you know how much we loved spending the Holidays with family here at home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reid's family came for Thanksgiving.  They arrived on the 22nd--his mom's birthday.  So we celebrated...

 with chocolate "lava cakes"--which ended up more like "lava goo."  Turns out that lava goo is still delicious, and even goo can hold a birthday candle.

I am so grateful for my amazing in-laws.  I know that not many people are lucky enough to marry into a family that they truly enjoy being with.  I did.

They were all here for four days, and it was so wonderful!! We finally got to meet Tom and Jana's little Winnie Lou, who is one month younger than James, and is just as cute as her name!!!  We couldn't get enough pictures of the two of them together.

gotta love the seemingly coordinated blank stares

 James, as usual, just wanted to put his fingers in his mouth.  

 And when we kept taking them out?  He just put them in Winnie's mouth

We were amazed at how long we could just do nothing but stare at these two sweet little babies!!!

We also managed to....

 squeeze in some game-playing

make Grandma's cute little candy turkeys

eat a HUGE and AMAZING Thanksgiving feast (Note to future self:  prior to sprinkling ground pepper on the turkey, securely fasten the lid.  Although should you forget, 1 cup of ground pepper doth not a turkey ruin...surprisingly...)

spend every day home from school loving this little brother

and soak in some snuggles and Vitamin D with Grandpa

I also forced Reid, Tom and Mike to go to my gym with me.  I made the mistake of dragging them to a weight-lifting class, where both Reid and Tom nearly died.  Of both cardiac arrest and humiliation.  Their dad is in great shape and made them look like little school girls.  No, in fact, little school girls probably wouldn't have cried as much as they did.

I got an intense 12 hour sore throat on T-day itself, which was a total bummer.  Turns out swallowing is a pretty major part of the feast.  Thankfully there were leftovers the next day.  And my sore throat did get me out of Black Thursday shopping.

We are so grateful that they made the drive (and do it almost every year!) out here to spend this wonderful holiday with us.  Being with the Allreds is always a good time, and it always leaves us with the "why-don't-we-live-closer-to-family?" feeling.

Thanks for such a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!!