A Week Of Family Celebration

Early in November (8th-14th), my sister's family and my parents were here for a week long celebration.

We started things off the first night with a belated 3rd birthday bash for Brooke (mid-October).

The next night the adults hit the town, while Grammy and Grandpa spent quality time with the kids. We all went wild and had one mixed drink, which we all agreed was our current limit. Parenting has crippled our livers!!

The following day we were on to Thanksgiving! Because of an incoming storm we decided to go out and enjoy our new fire pit before dinner. What says "Holiday" better than s'more appetizers?!

I got to simultaneously enjoy some of the good things in life: beer, a s'more, and a cute baby that I don't have to take care of when he cries!

Then it was on to the feast. We had full Thanksgiving fixings: maple glazed turkey, salad, stuffing, squash, potatoes (homegrown!), and pumpkin ice cream (which won the vote over pumpkin pie by a large margin). It was just like the real thing, but without football (it was Tuesday).

What's a guy got to do to get some turkey around here?

Liam was thankful for more men in the house to share his love of trucks and tractors.

Veteran's Day is my sister and bro-in-law's actual anniversary, so we sent them out for another night on the town.

And then, Thursday we were ready for Christmas! We even had a tree and everything. ;)

And we posed for the obligatory family photos. Yet again, Megan ended up in a sundress for Christmas.

We had another great dinner, this time with prime-rib from our own pasture! You can see it was very different from the Thanksgiving celebration, because we wore red and got out Christmas napkins and plates.

About five minutes in to dinner the kids were clamoring to open gifts.

"presents! presents! presents!"

Finally we let them have at it.

The night concluded with a little downtime on the couch.

It was a great visit with lots of cousin fun. We wish we could do it more often.