Happy Thanksgiving!

We drove down to Roanoke late Wednesday night after an early Thanksgiving dinner with Andrew's parents. While we were getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's side of the family, Madeline enjoyed playing with all of our old toys from when my brother and I were little, like this horse. Giddy-up!

Now don't let this fool you. You might think, "awww, isn't that sweet, Madeline and Uncle Nathaniel." Well, this is the only way Madeline liked my brother, if he took her outside. Otherwise, she gave him dirty looks and cried at him all weekend. I felt for sure that she would warm up to him. Nope... cold as a doorknob until he left on Sunday. So, I guess we will have to have a little Nathaniel training before Christmas. We will be looking at as many pictures of him as we can and possibly talking to him on Skype.


We finally made it to my grandparents house around 2pm for dinner. Madeline got to taste all the food before the rest of us. She wasn't as impressed with all the yummy Thanksgiving food as the rest of us. She would much rather play.


But, it didn't stop the rest of us from enjoying the yummy traditions. The broccoli caserole, broccoli salad, sweet potato caserole, corn pudding, mashed potatoes and mac and cheese, just to name a few. I'm not really a fan of the turkey, just the sides.

There were 30-some people crammed into my grandparents house. The group seems to get larger every year with new weddings and babies. But, somehow we all manage to find a seat.

While Andrew and I ate, my mom took Madeline out to play. She LOVED rolling around in the pine needles and leaves.

Nathaniel raked up a big leaf pile for the kids to jump in.

Emma and Madeline had a great time playing in it together.

It's even better when Daddy throws you in it.

Then there was the annual football game. I'm not really sure who won.

But, Madeline wasn't too happy about her Daddy not playing with her. She spent this time finding ways to wander onto the playing field and getting to Daddy.

Daddy is sooooo tough!

We are thankful for so many things. Of course, Madeline seems to pop into my head as something we are thankful for :) We can't even imagine or remember our lives without her. We are also thankful for such a Godly heritage that our parents have passed on to us. We are thankful for a home, job, cars, food, clothes and so many things that we take for granted. We are so blessed. It is nice to have at least one day a year to actually stop and count our blessings.