Thanksgiving and Christmas Festivities!

Thanksgiving was such a fun (and delicious) holiday for us this year! Rob's sister, Monica and her gang, (kids - Cameron, Donovan, Brittany, Ashley, Destiny, Karmen, and granddaughter Cassidy!) as well as Mom Taylor, all piled into a large passenger van and made the long trek from Michigan all the way out to Maryland to visit us. What a commute! We were so happy and flattered that they planned the trip to come out and see us for Thanksgiving, especially since we were only planning on a low key Thanksgiving at home this year. They came in late Tuesday night, prepped on Wednesday and Thursday morning, had Thanksgiving lunch/dinner Thursday (and FRIDAY!...and SATURDAY! Basically for as long as we had leftovers!), then left on Sunday morning. It was so nice getting to spend quality time with them, since when we go to Michigan, we are usually splitting our time between lots of different family members. As they stayed with us in our home, we had a chance to just relax, talk, and have fun! Some on the couch, some on the floor, some on the air mattress, and usually Ashley on the floor in Uriah's room! It was a full house for sure, but we made it work!

Left: working to de-rib the collard greens (me, Destiny, Brittany)
Right: Baking cake on cake on cake! (Rob, Ashley, Monica)

SO MUCH YUMMY FOOD! We had turkey, ham, candied yams, collard greens, fresh cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, potato salad, rolls, mac 'n cheese (two full trays!!), and CAKES! Caramel cake, chocolate cake, and lemon cake! (This is all off the top of my head, so I hope I remembered everything) We were more than happy to eat leftovers until there were no more. 

One thing I really enjoyed seeing was Uriah getting a chance to interact more closely with his cousins. I love how hands on everyone was. Not only was it good for Uriah to get a chance to spend time with family, but it was nice to have all of these willing extra hands to help take care of him! One morning, I woke up, and Uriah was on the couch eating cereal with the gals and watching cartoons! Another morning, they had taken him for a walk to the store. I really love how everyone was so kind and loving towards him!

Cassidy loved reading Uriah his bedtime story and giving him his bottle! She was a great helper!
Karmen playing with Uriah on the couch, and Cameron sharing his food with Uriah.

Christmas was another great holiday for us. It was fun decorating the tree and seeing all of my childhood ornaments and the memories that come with them. As a tradition, my mom would get each of us kids new ornaments every year. I love that she labeled them with the year, too, because then we really can appreciate how far back some of the ornaments go! (totally dating myself here) Not only was it fun to receive new ornaments every year, but my Mom's primary reason in giving us ornaments was so that when we had families of our own, we would have ornaments for our own trees! GREAT IDEA, MOM! I have already kept up with the tradition and bought ornaments for Uriah (and labeled with the year, albeit with much scragglier handwriting). We spent Christmas Eve drinking William Sonoma hot chocolate and watching a Christmas movie. Christmas Day, we all wore our matching Christmas PJs, read the story of Jesus' birth from the bible, and opened our gifts. 

We were invited to the Gary's for Christmas dinner. It was nice to be able to get together with good friends that are like family for Christmas. We had really ono food, and I played piano while the group gathered around to sing carols. It was an awesome Christmas!

I had to add this picture of Uriah, just because it's one of my favorites.
He is so handsome <3