Gobble, gobble!

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend. We gleefully celebrated the fact that we didn't have to travel and still got to be with family! We double-dipped on Turkey Day and spent the afternoon with the McKee & Whitaker families out in Somerville and the evening with the Marsh & Anderson families in Lakeland. We ate too much of everything, played a little football, pet a horse, played card games, enjoyed good conversation, and actually did a little relaxing, too. The McKees sang Happy Birthday to Molly and we shared a big ol' cookie cake (her request--with pink ballet shoes on it).

Amelia is still "a little high maintenance," as I like to say, but the crying episodes seem to be shorter--or maybe we're just learning to cope better with them. But she took all the overstimulation of the holiday in stride! She enjoyed meeting the shoulders of aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas and cousins. Nana bought her a swing for Christmas, insisting she might be happy enough in it to give us some non-crying time. And, in fact, she was right. Amelia loves it, even if it's just for a short time--20 minutes of a Baby At Peace is awesome! You will see a photo above of her, not crying, and sitting in the swing. Yippee!

Molly had her 6th birthday party on the Saturday after T-Day, at a pizza joint near our house. Eight kids came, ranging from 7 weeks (Amelia) to 6 years old. There were crafts and High School Musical songs, pizza, an ice cream cake & basketball cupcakes. I will post more pictures of that separately, but here's one of the "big girl" guests. We even had some long-distance guests: the Berthiaumes drove from Alabama and the Smiths drove up from Jackson, MS and, of course, Aunt Meredith lives in Thailand and she was there. How lucky are we! I just can't believe she's 6. She even has a loose tooth. But I will post about that later, when I can compose myself. I'm so dern emotional these days, I get teary just thinking about the Tooth Fairy....

Here are some photos from the week before (Amelia's little smile!) and the big weekend. Her brown dress was a gift from Aunt Julie & Uncle James in Chicago, and M & R have been trying to get me to put it on her from Day One. She is now big enough for 3-month clothes, just in time to show it off for Fall!