Thanksgiving

Jesse and I hosted our first Thanksgiving at our house with his side of the family and I'd say it was a success: plenty of food, lots of family time, the girls all had a great time playing with two of their cousins, plenty of laughs, and even an attempted photo shoot with 5 little girls.  I had a wonderful time, and Jesse and I probably would agree that the thing we were most thankful for was that everyone was willing to come to us and we didn't have to travel.  Not that we were unwilling by any means...but with three little girls that are in various stages of traveling well, we were very appreciative that everyone came here this year.  

Matt and his family arrived Wednesday evening to get the party started.  Lily and Emma were so excited to see their cousin Kole that they alternated between looking out the window and calling each other Kole in their games of make believe.  What a fun age.  

Thanksgiving morning, Erin and I went to jog a Turkey Trot, which was super fun and we both want to make it a regular part of our Thanksgivings when we are able to celebrate together.  We left Jesse and Matt with 5 girls, 4 years old and under, and went for a lovely run.  Since I'm pathetically out of shape and Erin doesn't have hills in northern Michigan, we almost died but decided that it was a success since we didn't throw up at the end.  The small, silver linings.  We walked in the door and all 3 of mine had an immediate meltdown which took awhile to get under control, but Mom and Dad Hildebrand arrived somewhere in the middle of Emma's tantrum and everyone else settled down.  

playing in the snow in pjs and boots

I had made the turkey ahead of time, and I'm so glad I did and that we are a "reheat on Thanksgiving" type of family.  At least this year.  My general idea was that we would eat when the food was hot, so that took a lot of pressure off of me to feel like I had to have a dinner ready at a certain time, and there was enough craziness with a small herd of girls running around that I probably wouldn't have noticed anyone getting feisty and hungry anyway!  As it turned out, we were all seated and eating by 130, so it worked out fine.  Jesse gave my turkey a pass, which was an improvement over the turkey I made for Christmas last year, and we just all relaxed, visited, played with girls and napped the rest of the afternoon.  Well, the girls napped some, I don't think there were any adults naps that took place. 

the always flattering meal picture

Jesse's folks left Friday evening and Matt and Erin left Sunday.  I love having family here and had a great time getting to visit with everyone.  The highlight was watching all the little girls interact together, and even Kaylee was really interested in Anna and would lovingly smack her on the head or steal her pacifier.

Mom H made sugar cookies for Lily, Emma and Koleen to decorate.  Lily liked to pile the sprinkles on.

we exchanged Christmas presents over the weekend also.  Matt is modeling the hat I made him and the backpack we got Kole.

Since then, I have been trying to get the house put back the way it was and move into the Christmas season.  We finally finished ordering presents for my family's gift exchange that is coming up, and then maybe we will finish buying gifts for our girls.  Knowing us, we will be ordering things off Amazon and having them shipped here the week before or the week of Christmas, thank you Amazon Prime.

Back to the fact we had a mini photo shoot:

I realized I had enough dresses in the appropriate sizes that I could outfit everyone in semi-matching clothes for pictures.  With a 4 year old, two 2 year olds, an almost 10 month old and a 3ish month old all in a picture together with no crying, I'd say this was a smashing success.

I unashamedly bribed Emma with a cookie to get her to stay in the picture.  her facial expressions were incredible as a result. 

everyone notice how absolutely adorable little Anna looks in this one.

poor Kaylee was a trooper and just wanted a nap.  I was so focused on Grumpy Pants Emma that I didn't notice how uncomfortable Kaylee looked.  oh well.

That's about it from here for now.  The tree will hopefully be decorated tomorrow, since it's been up for 2 days now with no ornaments...

More coming soon!