Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I was very excited to make my first turkey dinner this year. Michael and I decided we wanted to lay low and make an attempt at creating one of our favorite meals of the year. Lucky for me I had LOTS of help. Mom came over on Tuesday night so we could start cooking. Well at the sort of last minute the plans changed and she was here to babysit rather than cook. One of my very best friends from college came in town from California with his fiance whom I'd not yet met. Mic and I ended up going out to Dallas that night for my favorite, (not Michael's) sushi. It was a great time seeing Alan, Ashley, Scott (another great friend from college), his wife, and two other couples. It was a fun way to start my little holiday!

So back to the TURKEY. Mom and I started first thing on Wednesday morning getting everything ready. Then I took a little (3 hour) break from the fun and went to get my hair cut and mom graciously babysat again. I did my best to make sure the kids would be sleeping while I was gone. When I got back we hit the kitchen again and spent the rest of the evening preparing. It was a lot of fun cooking with her. I loved every minute of it!!

You have to start with Grandmother's recipe.

Then make sure Michael is comfortable for the evening.

With someone to keep him entertained, thanks Kyle!

They did a great job of keeping the kids laughing and having fun, out of the kitchen.

Prepare the stuffing...

Stuff the turkey and start cooking it the night before...then go to bed really late.

Thursday morning started with the boys watching a little bit of the parades.

Mom stopped for a few minutes to watch the big balloons with Tate.

Out came the beautiful bird.

A successful golden brown.

Kyle came over again to help make some final preparations before going to visit Cole.

FLUFF...the real reason Kyle came over. A thanksgiving favorite for both of us.
We stopped to take a couple of pictures before our guests arrived.

Poppy, CC, and Mama showed up for the first of 5 stops they would have today.

Mama and CC saved the day, or the gravy I should say. That was the only flip out moment mom and I had the whole 2 days we spent cooking together. We had no clue what to do and let them take over. It was SOO good!

Hats

I've mentioned before that Tate often comes home from school in hats. Tonight I took pictures of the collection I could find. There are many that have been worn out to where they were thrown away. I knew I needed to go ahead and capture what I have before they get worn out as well.

Monster Hat

Whoo...Whoo

Busy Bee Tate

Batman

Listening Ears

Turkey Tot

Little Man Tate Indian

My Favorite...Officer Tate

Pilgrim Tater (whoa baby that's a big hat)

LOOK AT THOSE LEGS...Turkey Legs
Toy Story Tate

(this one's a hand me down from Julian and his favorite, can you tell from the smile)

He has a bit of a bruise still showing on his cheek from a big fall last weekend. Daddy got to him quickly and put vanilla extract on it but missed that little area. It's amazing that it actually works. This is an old wives tale that's really true. When you do something that you can tell will leave a bruise - pour some vanilla extract on the area and it WON'T bruise. The area where Tate would have had a bruise was covering most of the apple of his cheek. My mom can also testify it works from a stumble she took a few years ago with Julian at Nicole's house.

Heidi's Shower

Today I went to a baby shower for Heidi, a girl that I worked with before I had Tate. All my favorite girls from that job were at the shower as well. Of the 7 of us only 2 are still with the company. I really really enjoy myself everytime we get together, though it's been a year since the last time I saw them. We try to make an effort to see each other during the year but now we're very spread out and have growing families so it makes it difficult to coordinate something where we're all together. Babies will bring us together for sure! I LOVE babies!!! Anyway it was a wonderful few hours and I can't wait to see them all again, hopefully sooner than another year from now.

Chocoholics

Tonight I made a chocolate birthday cake for a girl at work. The boys really enjoyed it. The spatula, whisk, and bowl of batter that is. I know I'm not supposed to, but I let them lick it anyway. When I was a kid I did and nothing ever happened so why not... I couldn't resist taking some pictures. At one point Julian had his whole head in the bowl trying to lick the remains. Tate quickly followed his lead and before long they were both covered. We went straigt to the tub after they had polished the bowl.

Boys & Girls at the Zoo

On my mom's side of the family there are 18 cousins. Of those 6 of the girls have started our families. 5 of us have 2 children and both of those children are the same sex. So I have 2 boys, both my sisters have 2 girls, one of my cousins has 2 boys and the other has 2 girls. None of us have made it to that third child yet and that I know of, no one has one in sight in the near future. It's just kind of weird how it has worked out with us all having same sex kiddos.

On Saturday my cousin Jessica and I took our kids to the zoo. Our oldest are about 16 months apart but you would never know there was that big of a gap. Callie keeps right up with Julian, she is absolutely one of his favorite kids to hang out with. Our littlest are exactly one month apart. They're both at that stage where the random hoppity skip flopping is a normal way of walking. They were so fun to watch together.

I took a lot of pictures and I'm sorry but I couldn't narrow down to just a few so there's a bunch on here. Oh and most of the pictures are of the backs...

This is not going to last long. These two want out so they can see!

Not sure if you can see this guy's MASSIVE claws. We were trying to figure out how he could even walk with these things.

We went in the giant bird cage so the kids could feed the birds. This is always a high light at the zoo. Julian really enjoyed seeing the birds so close, though I think he might have been a tad nervous too.

Callie is fearless.

We had to be at the football fields ready for the game at 7:30 this morning. Guess I should have taken that extra 30 seconds this morning to comb down Julian's wild spot. Still a cute pic.