Thanksgiving

Cousins... Top pic is the redhead trio!

*sigh* brothers....

First, I must state that I am extremely blessed. David and I have be fortunate to have our jobs, our health and a wonderful family! God has given us much! I usually dread family gatherings - David is from a big family (and I from a small one). I get clausterphobic and a bit overwhelmed with all the cousins. However, this Thanksgiving was a great one! Not only did the kids all play well together, but the adults were all in good moods.

My "married" family - well, we were all just thrust together. While we each fell in love with one of them (our spouse), there is no law stating that you have to like or even get along with your inlaws. And don't get me wrong, there are days where I don't enjoy some of them. But Thanksgiving was perfect. The conversation was upbeat and fun!

But my favorite activity was when four of the sisters-in-law escaped! We cornered our husbands and told them we were going to the movies - and then vanished. No time for them to discuss it with us. And yes, we did go see Twilight (loved it) and yes we had all seen the movie before. Yes, we are twisted and weird, but that was why it was so much fun! For 2 1/2 hours, we girls were, well, just girls! Giggling and laughing, dissecting the movie and the novel. I appreciated the bond of sisterhood that night. And I must give the men credit. They were patient and kind with us (I mean, we left ALL the kids with them).

So, I say here that I am very Thankful for my family - ALL of them. NorCal, SoCal and Utah. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Plethera of posts

Just a fair warning that I am going to be posting quite a bit today and tomorrow. Why? well, first of all, I have just had 4 wonderful days to spend with my family. I was actually able to take pictures and have fun stuff to write about!
So, tonight I will post a few and tomorrow I will post what we did today - :)

My little monkey

Okay, so Olivia is too cute - She was watching some Disney show and perched herself on the end of my bed. She was absolutely oblivious to me taking a picture! Oh well, at least I know she can focus, right?

Family Portraits

About one month ago, the entire family got together to do a family portrait. There are a total of 8 couples with 17 kids. So if everyone showed up there would be 33 of us. Unfortunately, one of Dave's brother's didn't show, so the rest of us took a picture and then our individual family photos.

Finally, that brother took a "make up" photo and our AWESOME photographic essentially photoshopped them in. BTW, Masterpiece Images is the photographer. He can be found at http://mpiphotovideo.com/ But here are the ones I liked. We didn't necessarily get either of these for the huge family photo. Everyone else liked a different one. But luckily we all smiled and looked at the camera in every photo. EVEN Maggie! I love the sepia one. It is just more like us....

I love family photos though. I love sharing what we all look like and that we really are happy, not just on that day. (note: one of my niece's REFUSED to look at the camera or smile. and they are pretty happy too!)

Enjoy!

Let's Get Physical!

So my darling baby, Mags, is 16 months. And she STILL isn't walking. She has been in physical therapy for the last 3 months. As our PT tells us, "she's smart, and that can be bad." (Now, is that a compliment or not?) Apparently, the part of your brain that deals with speech and gross motor (walking) are right next to each other. So when a child begins walking you see a delay in speech. But once they have acquired the skill of walking, their speech takes off again. If you wonder why all of a sudden your 18 month old is speaking to you and making sense one day, this is why. I guess that adage of "some people can't walk and talk at the same time" is true.

Anyway, yesterday at Mag's appointment, the PT said "walk" and Ms. Mags firmly stated, "NO WALK." and then proceeded to plop her bottom down on the floor. Great. Sassy and stubborn. I wonder where she got those traits?

In the meanwhile, we are trying to get her to want to be a part of the walking world. Our daycare provider's and my back just can't keep picking up this hefty girl. I am hoping she stops talking one day and takes off running. But for now, I will settle for the best snuggles and hugs.