Thanksgiving

We enjoyed a great Thanksgiving Day in Missouri, but didn't get many pictures! We spent much of the day cooking and preparing for our feast. Kirk brined the turkey and then baked it in a bag. Tammi and I made rolls, mashed potatoes, a cheese ball, and a relish tray. Erin and Nana made stuffing/dressing, sweet potatoes, fresh cranberry relish, gravy, pumpkin pie, cobbler, and date bars. Needless to say, there was plenty of delicious food for us to enjoy.

I put the bread dough in the microwave to keep it out of the way while it rose, and found it like this when I came back to it a couple of hours later. Oops!


We got freezing rain in the morning, making the trees icy and absolutely beautiful.

The boys had stadium seating for Baby Einstein while we worked on the meal.

Tammi and I made some flower arrangements to decorate the table. Unfortunately we were so busy enjoying our feast that we didn't think to take a picture of all of us around the table.

The day ended with a stunning sunset, which was not done justice by this photo.

After dinner, Tammi and I poured over the huge stack of ads and decided where to shop the next morning. We left at 3:15am, met up with a couple of friends, and headed to Springfield where we shopped at Target, Old Navy, and Bass Pro Shops (with a stop at Panera for coffee and bagels mixed in there for good measure).

Who's That Boy in the Mirror?

Trip loves to look at and talk to himself in the mirror. We have a full-length mirror leaning against the wall in our bedroom that he likes to visit and he has discovered the mirror in Uncle Gary and Aunt Tammi's bathroom this week. This evening I was finally able to get some good pictures of his mirror antics.

This is a face that he started making a couple of weeks ago and he has been doing it constantly when he is surprised, interested, full of wonder, being silly, or just being cute.

Some deep introspection or a pep talk. "Come on Trip, you can do it! Win this one for the boys!"

I love the wave!

Halloween Fun

Since I'm just now posting about Halloween after Thanksgiving, I obviously have some catching up to do, but I figure that it's better late than never.

On Halloween, Kirk and some friends played this song at church. It's definitely a favorite of ours.

Kelly and I made these milk jug pumpkins to adorn our porch during the month of October.

We had an evening of fun at church, including carnival games, snacks, and candy. Kelly and I had lots of fun decorating these cupcakes for the cupcake walk.



I didn't get any great pictures of Trip in his monkey costume, but you get the idea.

Eating Olives

Trip LOVES to eat olives. One day Kirk put olives on Trip's fingers and he has wanted to eat them that way ever since. As soon as he sees some, he will stick out his finger and protest loudly if he doesn't get one (which is what he was doing at the beginning of the video). He also has his own version of the sign language please and uses it frantically when he wants something.