Thanksgiving Weekend

Or… the Party that never ends.

Wednesday, after Abby’s birthday party, we travelled to Marietta to attend a 50th Wedding Anniversary party for some of my parents dearest friends.  Mike and Mollie Haught are like second parents to me and my siblings and so we were honored to be there to celebrate with them.

My sister’s family was traveling from North Carolina.  My brother’s family was traveling from Maryland and my Aunt was traveling from West Virginia so we all met up in Marietta for the first party of the weekend.  Hannah made everyone a spaghetti dinner in her apartment. That is a total of 25 people and one dog (not mine) in her apartment/dorm room.  Fun times!  Hannah did a great job.

Karen and I made those turkey shirts (and hair accessories) for the girls and Judah a few weeks before Thanksgiving.

Thursday morning, we had brunch at my mom’s house and I didn’t take my camera to that event.  But I took a lot of pictures with Rachel’s camera – maybe she’ll share them on her blog.

Then that afternoon, we had a Girls-Only Tea Party at my house that my Aunt Linda organized and made everything for. She had cut out the special bread and fillings and we put them together.

On Friday, we had our family Thanksgiving dinner.  Karen fit a total of 17 people at her table.  We each contributed to the meal with our favorite dishes.  That was some GOOD food!!!

The other end of the table…

The kids table was set up in the hall way.

On Saturday, everyone came over to our house for Birthday Party #2 that included Uncle Rob.  His birthday is the same day as Abby.  We had chili and taco soup and cheesecake for dessert.

Later that evening, the adults had our Christmas Gift Exchange.  More food and presents!!  Not all presents are pictured here.  Let’s just say the younger members got a little initiation into the group.

Sunday morning, my brother preached at our church and talked about how the Kingdom of God is like a bottle of beer.  You can hear the message here by clicking on the Nov 27 date.

After everyone left to travel home, Billy and I took a nap… mine was much longer than his.  It was such a fun weekend – so good to reconnect with family.

As always, click on any picture to view larger.

Birthday Party

Today is Abby’s eighth birthday.  She is growing up too fast! 

Abby was out of school for the Thanksgiving break, so we had her girl friends over for a party last Wednesday morning.  She had requested that everyone wear a costume.  Abby wanted to be an Egyptian princess.  I looked online for some ideas and then raided my sister’s fabric closet.  We came up with some ideas and Karen sewed them together.  I love having a creative seamstress for a sister who can execute my costume ideas!

She even does makeup!

Look at those eyelashes!  They are not fake.  How I wish my eyelashes were that long!

All but the crown.  Billy mentioned that he’ll be perfecting  his  aim with the rifle when he saw her all made up like this.

All the girls… Sarah declined to put a costume on for the party, even though there was much pleading from Abby.

We played a few games and they also ran around and enjoyed playing with Abby’s toys.

Abby helped Nana make this big cookie for her birthday “cake.”  Abby doesn’t really like cake but she loves her Nana’s cookies so we came up with the idea to make a big one to share with everyone.

Cookies and ice cream!

Presents!

Abby enjoyed her birthday party and I was glad we have not reached the stage for a sleep-over!