Thanksgiving 2012

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving in Charlotte. It was amazing experiencing it, but it's also amazing typing it and just realizing again how good it is that God provided for us to be here - near family. Rather than the crazy long trip down from KY and short time together, followed by another crazy long trip to get back to KY, we just zipped up the road and spent lots of time together and it was nothing shy of awesome. I love that situations like this keep me being thankful of how God has provided and allowed me to be near my sisters and my children to be near and close to their cousins. When Avery woke up on Thanksgiving morning and I told her we needed to get ready to go see Catherine and Maggie, she squealed with delight and there's just nothing that compares to their delight in just being around each other. My kids love their cousins and I adore that the "big girls" still love to play with the "little ones"....they don't just do it to oblige them...they engage in it and it's precious to me and to my kids.

This picture is kind of random and out of place, but I love it. Kevin has been in our family for a LONG time, but I love that he and my sister Catina still act like a young couple - always wanting to be near each other. You can just tell when you're around them that they enjoy being together. Why pull up a chair when they can share a cooler? =) Here they are reading the black Friday ads and keeping an eye on the kiddos playing outside.

Here's my handsome little devil keeping an eye on the goings on in the kitchen..supervising the meal prep if you will.

The girls love babies and they do really well  holding and entertaining them too (bonus for Melissa and I).

Steve and an "I just woke up Declan".

The day before Thanksgiving Kennedy lost her very first tooth. When she came and told me she made sure to go into elaborate detail. Apparently she had a candy corn stuck in her tooth and she decided biting on plastic play peas would be the best way to get that candy corn out. Well...needless to say, biting into those plastic peas did get the candy corn out and her loose tooth came along with it. We decided that the going rate for the Taylor tooth fairy would be a silver dollar...she was most excited. She spent the night with Aunt Melissa the night prior to Turkey Day and our big fun run, so thankfully my sister Catina has a personal relationship with the fairy of teeth and could instruct h.er on where to leave her coin ;).

Sweet boy overseeing the happenings in the kitchen and eating as he did so. 

cousins!

While Aunt Melissa slaved over a hot stove ALL DAY...the kiddos made good use of all of the fallen leaves in her front yard.

going

going

 Whew! She had so much fun she did this over, and over, and over and over...well, you get the point.

Avery wasn't as into the leaves as big sister but she did toss some around and into the air for a little while.

 Take two...operation leave dive:

now that's a dive...I couldn't even see her: 

oh...there she is!

Melissa and Steve did an amazing job hosting - the food was delicious and the set up was perfect (we've got a large crew!). I couldn't finish up this post without a picture of the beautiful turkey she prepared. Yum!

Steve had a hurt back but he mustered up the strength to carve up our holiday bird for us.

Maybe Tim and I will be settled enough in our new house by this time next year to host Thanksgiving ourselves...I'm not going to hold my breath though...there's still LOTS of cardboard around us. Oh well....