Moments from Thanksgiving

We had Jared, Lindsay, Carson, Kaiya, Chloe, Angie, and Qiana here for Thanksgiving. We had so much fun, cooked a great meal, played, danced, ate more food, watched football, shopped...and kind of slept.

It was our first holiday without Mom. It felt very weird, almost not like a real holiday. I guess the one advantage Aaron and I have is that we weren't always in WA for the holidays. I missed her. I did have a couple Mom moments throughout the day...worrying that everything was going to be just perfect and sweating all around my hairline (it was super hot in the house...and I was stressing). Two wonderful things about mom that, apparently, I inherited.

Elsie and Chloe had fun playing...when Elsie wasn't being bossy.

So, nobody warned us of how disgusting it was going to be cleaning off the turkey and pulling out the neck. While the turkey cooked, we had a litte picnic appetizer party on the family room floor.Jared, who refuses to take a normal picture, carved the turkey for us.Our new kitchen table all set for dinner. Don't you love the centerpiece?We had a nice dinner. Elsie, of course, ate hardly anything. We all got to talk to Mitch. The kids had fun blowing air at each other with their straws.Elsie loves playing with Gigi's cell phone. She would take it over to the stairs and sit and have long conversations with herself. All the cousins. Elsie, Kaiya, Carson, Chloe, Qiana.

As you all know, one of Elsie's favorite things to do is dance. That works out very well for our family because none of us can resist movin' to the beat. After our meal, we turned on some music while we cleaned things up. The kids were totally into the dancing, and we joined in as well. I've got great video of it, but I'm not able to upload it now. I'll keep working on it. Even Qiana joined in on the fun.

Jared and Aaron watched a lot (they would claim differently) of football and checked fantasy scores all the time. Carson was totally into it, too. He knows all sorts of stats and who is good and all that. Then he knew a bunch of stuff about college football when they watched that on Saturday. Oh joy!

Elsie doing another one of her amazing dance moves.

Lindsay and Carson snuggling on the couch.

Who could resist that face?! Chloe has got the best smile. She scrunches her face and shows those big teeth. Oh, I love it!! Elsie got so much attention while everyone was here and loved it.

Angie and I had to get pictures of Elsie and Qiana in their argyle sweaters. Cute cousins!

Elsie could not get enough of Gigi while she was here. She insisted on snuggling with her, sitting by her, following her around, and holding her hand in the car. Thank goodness, Ang was a good sport.