A Texas Thanksgiving!

It was so wonderful to be back in Texas for Thanksgiving this year! The past 2 years we spent Thanksgiving in California at seminary, which was wonderful and beautiful, but we were so glad to be home this time. Since we were spending the actually day of Thanksgiving with Daniel's family, we decided to have my family over for a cookout a couple of days before, so that we would get to see everyone. It was so fun! Daniel cooked burgers on the grill, my mom made her famous homemade french fries, and my lovely contribution to the whole thing was a frozen cheesecake that I forgot to get out of the freezer on time, so we literally at frozen cheesecake!! haha! It was great though, we had fun. But, I unfortunately didn't take any pictures, so you'll just have to image what it looked like :)

On Wednesday Daniel and I loaded up Elijah (and all the stuff that has to go with Elijah!) and headed out to Austin. Elijah did so great in the car, he slept most of the time. We stopped in San Angelo to feed him once, and then he got hungry right after we passed through Llano so I just leaned my seat back and fed him a bottle in his carseat. He didn't mind at all, he gulped down the whole thing! So the car ride went great and he slept alot, but that inevidably means that when bedtime came, he was not so much wanting to sleep. He was up 3 different times that first night, crying and wide awake. Mommy and Daddy were a little tired on Thanksgiving Thursday as you can imagine! We just stayed at Daniel's parents house and his grandparents came over for a very casual lunch (because we were having our BIG Thanksgiving celebration on Friday at his aunt and uncle's house). Grandma and Papa just couldn't believe how much Elijah had grown! He gave them lots and lots of smiles, and was fascinated with the pen in Papa's shirt pocket, he couldn't take his eyes off of it :) Elijah slept much better Thursday night, only waking up once for just a few minutes.

On Friday morning we all loaded up and headed to Daniel's Aunt Jerry Lynn and Uncle Roger's house in Bastrop. What a beautiful drive! The trees were bright yellow and red and leaves were covering the ground. There is no doubt in my mind that fall is my favorite time of year. Well, on our way to Bastrop we made a stop to do a little Black Friday shopping....at Best Buy...and guess what??? We got the camera we've been wanting! We actually bought this camera last year at this time and then we lost it (I can't talk about this too much or I will start crying), so we've waited to get a really good deal on another one. We bought a Nikon D40, and they had a special deal where you get a bag, and instructional DVD, and a $300 dollar lens, all for just a little bit more than the original price of the camera! We felt good about buying it, and we are going to somehow permanently attach it to our bodies when we travel so we don't lose it again :) All of the pictures I'll post today were taken with the camera. I'm so excited about playing with it!

Well, we had great food and fun with Daniel's family that day. We took some family photos since we have a new addition to the family, and I think they turned out pretty good. The setting was wonderful, Roger and Jerry Lynn have such a beautiful home and yard. And, I'm so bummed, but I didn't get any pictures of Elijah in his special Thanksgiving outfit! He spit up all over it before I could get any pictures :( Oh well, thats the way it goes.

Daniel and his cousin David playing washers...

Mimi getting all the lovin she can get!!



Elijah loves his Aunt Summer...