Thanksgiving Themes

As I look back at the pictures taken over the course of Thanksgiving weekend, I noticed a few themes:

iPad.  I got one from work a couple weeks ago to use for my job, but a big benefit of that was being able to download some apps on it for the kids. Came in handy on the long car ride, but also for a bit of bonding time and showing family members all the wonders of technology.  They showed Oliver a Mickey app, Great Grandpa got a kick out of watching Ian play Jake (there was a comment from Grandma about how she remembers dial phones being a big deal), and Aunt Stephanie added some of the apps we mentioned to her iPad, which the kids then had to watch Owen play.

 

 

Old Toys. I think it's kinda funny I follow something as new as the iPad up by telling about how much fun the kids had playing with toys Darrin and I played with as kids, or older yet, my aunts and uncles played with.  They found Darrin's old Nerf guns and had fun attacking everyone. Ian has become obsessed with my old Care Bears and Care Bear Cousins. They actually made the return trip home with us. Not to mention the Little People items the kids always play with at my parents' house.  As always, the first stop at my grandparents' house was the basement so Ian could retrieve the train my aunts and uncles played with- now held together with twist ties.  Most surprising to me was to find the Hot Wheels track all set up at Great Billie's. I remember lots of fun times playing with that as a kid, and tried so hard to find something like that for Ian when he was younger. They just don't make things like they used to.

Teasing. Mostly from Uncle Brian or Darrin, but even Great Grandpa got in on the action.

  

Thanksgiving weekend in pictures

It was a busy weekend, and I could write a blog post for each day, but this coming week is going to be extremely busy, too, so one post with lots of pictures will just have to do. One thing I learned while uploading and editing these is I need to have a steadier hand when shooting without flash/not on auto.



We had a DELICIOUS dinner at Brian and Jodi's house (they make the best turkey ever). Annaliese had her first bites of turkey and loved them, as well as the squash and mashed potatoes. The cranberry sauce, apple salad, and rolls were a hit with Ian (whose head is below the camera).


After lunch, Ian decided to burn some calories, and not even the frigid temps could keep him indoors. He had fun running around in the backyard and trying to get the dogs to play with him.

We weren't able to stay too long at Brian and Jodi's because we had to get to Davenport for Christmas at Great Billie's. And what's Christmas at Great Billie's without an appearance by Santa.


Ian got to help open the bag and pass out the presents.


Annaliese sat on Santa's lap for the first time and wasn't quite sure what to think.


As always, Santa Clause and Great Billie went a little overboard with all the presents. Ian couldn't wait to open them up and Annaliese didn't know what in the world to think.


Ian's favorite gift was this Buzz Lightyear. It wasn't out of his reach most of the weekend. We even had to write IAN on the bottom of his foot like Andy does in the movies.


Annaliese didn't wait very patiently to open her book. The hat couldn't have been better timed. Darrin and I had just talked about that morning how we really needed to get a hat for her.

The next day we went to visit my grandparents in Davenport. We ate a scrumptious lunch and the kids had a great time playing on the floor and with all the vehicles.


Ian absolutely loved playing with this train set (imagine that). He eventually added two more cars to it as well. My aunt told stories of how it never stayed together and they had to tie it with twist ties for Ian just like they did when they were kids.


He had fun teasing Great Grandpa by ramming his chair with the tractor, too.


Annaliese crawled all over the place and loved pushing the trucks around on the floor as well, or playing with Ian's ball.


And look at all her teeth! Her first one on the top is just starting to come through as well.



After a long day of playing trains, trucks, and bear cave with Grandpa Dave, Ian fell asleep within 5 minutes of leaving the house. How this is comfortable I have no idea. Luckily this trip wasn't very far and he figured out how to sleep more comfortably for the drive back to Omaha.

We came back from Davenport yesterday and spent the day trying to re-acclimate ourselves. Today was all about decorating for Christmas.


Ian helped with the decorating even more this year, though we had to teach him about placement on the tree. Otherwise all the ornaments would have been in one large clump.


He got to put the angel on the top of the tree.


Here's the one ornament that we didn't put up on the tree this year...


For some reason, he' thinks the stockings are Santa's boots, and we let him, because it's so darn cute when he wears them. He remembered doing this last year, too. His memory is amazing. He was asking us about certain ornaments before we even had the box out of the basement, and was able to set up other decorations all around the house without being told where they go.


All the weekend fun, plus the middle-of-the-night sickness we dealt with last night, tuckered the poor guy out and he fell asleep in Darrin's arms by 6:30 tonight. He never woke up as Darrin carried him to bed, either, which is even more amazing.

Thanksgiving Weekend

These last four days have been wonderful. We had three Thanksgivings filled with delicious food, and time spent with family we don't see very much. We took off from Omaha Wednesday night and spent Thursday noon eating with my dad's family. Ian shocked everyone with the amount of food he can eat, and he had a great time playing tractors with Connor.
After eating with dad's family we had Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's family. My grandma has 24 grandkids and 6 great-grandkids, Ian being the youngest of them. We alternate years of all of us attending either Thanksgiving or Christmas. Because most of us (and all of the great-grandkids) won't be there for Christmas, we had Christmas early. Christmas at my grandma's is an epic event, and I wouldn't change it for the world. It begins with Santa stopping by and delivering presents to all of us, and ends with opening the presents grandma and others have for us. Ian got about 12 presents to open, and he quickly learned how to say the word Santa, although he didn't want to sit on his lap. This year he learned to pull the paper off the presents, but he still wasn't obsessed with figuring out what was in them. He got lots of books, play-doh, a "laptop," some clothes, and some vehicles.

We spent the rest of the weekend enjoying time with extended family: eating breakfast with my dad's parents, lunch with my grandma, celebrating Brittney's birthday for dinner, and going to a cousin's engagement party for desserts.

We left after breakfast on Saturday, and after Ian's nap, we worked on putting up the tree. Ian had more fun playing with the ornaments on the floor, and he didn't want us to put them on the tree. He put one of them on there, but after that, didn't really want to touch the tree. Judging from his reaction, he doesn't like the feel of it. Our lights are on a remote because the plug is hard to get to, and Ian was a bit scared when we would say, "Lights on!" and the tree would turn on, and then we said, "Lights off" the tree turned off. We finally had to show him the remote and let him play with it to figure out what we were doing. Now whenever he sees the tree off, he wants it turned on.
We spent Sunday shopping for a few Christmas presents (a new vacuum and some Wii games for Darrin and me) and watched the Packers lose yet another game. We had our last Thanksgiving meal for the year on Sunday night for supper. Marlena and Noah had dinner at their house with Marlena's mom and grandma. Even though we'd had so much turkey already, we were up for eating more, and it was so yummy.

This weekend was great, and I can't wait for Christmas break to spend more time with our families.