Thanksgiving

Catching up!  We've made it to Thanksgiving :-)

For the past five years we have hosted Thanksgiving at our house.  I absolutely love having everyone over at our house and it's become a tradition that I really, really look forward to.  We even hosted last year, a week after the duder was born.  So as we were cleaning up the baby's party, Dad asked what we wanted them to bring for Thanksgiving dinner.  I looked at him and said, I haven't though about it, I have shopped, I haven't done anything, so..... I have no clue.  He just smiled at me and said that they would be happy to host this year.  I said... OK!!!  Which just goes to show....a first birthday party is way more exhausting than giving birth :-)

The duder was all ready to watch football!

Adam spent many hours making a Turducken the night before.  It was an extremely interesting process.  It's a turkey, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a game hen.  Bizarre.

Whole Turducken

Slicing into the Turducken

Side shot of Turducken

Inside

The table is set!

He wore this same bib last year and it was bigger than he was!

The fam.

 

Happy campers

He is obsessed with drinking out of real cups.

Can you tell Adam is obsessed with him?  Not the iPhone to the left!  He took as many pictures as I did!

Walking off his meal

Joe Gibbs LOVES the baby!

My big boy!

The meal was absolutely delicious and it was just an overall relaxing and wonderful day spent with family.  Duder particularly enjoyed the sweet potatoes!

Good morning!

Crazy hair

Crazier hair

Adam's "I'm heading out" pose

More crazy hair

Sorry, I just can't get enough of the crazy hair.  He actually has the same hair that Adam had as a kid.

Where'd the duder go?

There he is!

Where'd my Uncle Adam go?

Those lashes kill me!

Adam had his 10 year high school reunion (what???) the day after, so he headed back to the city and the rest of us decided to wander over to Columbia, a little historic town in Gold Country.  It was so much fun!  The little main street is all historical buildings and exhibits and they even have an old stage coach that you can ride in.  You really do feel like your back in the mining days!

Newspaper office

Stage coach

An old hearse.  A little creepy if I do say so myself!

The bowling alley!

Jason thought it was quite amusing that it said Ladies Welcome

Such a lovely little town!  And if you ever stop in, please, please, please go by the candy shop!!  Yum!!

We spent the rest of the weekend just enjoying eachother's company and watching the dogs and the baby.  Always entertaining!  It's amazing to me how much all of the dogs are interested in the baby, but know their limits with him.  They are all incredibly gently with him.

Even the giant

Someone has started learning how to throw a tantrum

And just as quickly, turn it off when he gets what he wants.  Little stinker!

Buddies

Elle and Joe kept trying to play tug-of-war with him, and he thought it was the funniest thing ever!

Mom and Dad really wanted a picture of all the dogs and Eli together for the Christmas card.  You can imagine how well that went......

Loves!