Thanksgiving 2009

We were able to see several friends and family members on Thanksgiving and on the days surrounding Thanksgiving. On Tuesday evening our good friends, Lee and Charity (used to live in Louisville, but now live in South Carolina), came in for a quick visit. We enjoyed some good food, great conversation, and some wonderful hang out time with them. Julianne loved having them in and spent the entire time showing off for them. On Thursday we drove to Indianapolis, IN for the day to celebrate Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's house. My mom, grandma, and aunt also were there and Julianne's Uncle Jason and Aunt Laura came too. It was a great day of hanging out with family! Julianne loves being around Mady(my cousin) and absolutely loved getting to play with her all day. On Friday our sweet friends, Joe and Sarah (friends from St. Louis, who lived in Louisville and now live in St. Louis again) came over for dinner. We had a great time getting to see them and Julianne loved getting to play with Annabelle and Jayce.

Between Saturday and Sunday Julianne and I put up the Christmas tree, while Stephen finished a major paper. Julianne has been much more interested in "helpin mommmy". She helps cook, load/unload the dishwasher, wash dishes in the sink, throw laundry in the washer and dryer, "fold" clothes, sweep, make the bed, etc. I think she likes the idea more than actually finishing the task, but still it's sweet that she actually is interested in doing these things, even if it's just for a couple of minutes. All of this said, to say that Julianne helped put the Christmas decorations up. This consisted of sorting through the ornaments and finding interesting ones to play with, wrapping up her baby in the tree skirt and stockings, wearing Christmas tins on her feet, and crawling under the Christmas tree. She also helped put ornaments on the tree, which proved to be quite interesting. As I was trying to space the ornaments out evenly to make the tree aesthetically pleasing, Julianne was happy putting all the ornaments on just one branch. Her favorite part of the decorations is by far the nativity scene. She has played with the figurines, lined them up in order to count them, carried them around the house, and added things to it, such as a dog, santa, and some stackable cats. Today I noticed that all of the figurines were not in the stable and asked her where they were. She went over to the bouncy seat where all of them were happily laying. Here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving week.