Our Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Steven REALLY wanted to go to Nauvoo for Thanksgiving this year. I was a bit skeptical about going when he first brought it up. After all, I knew that I would have just had Ella two weeks before and wasn't sure about the 5 hour drive (without at new born) and I wasn't sure how she'd be sleeping, or how I'd be feeling, or how easy nursing would be going. Plus, I'll admit, I was sad about not going to my parents house for Thanksgiving. But, I could tell that this was something Steven needed. He needed to have someone on his side of the family dote on our kids, and especially our new baby (and the Smith's are pretty much family, and they're closer than his blood relatives who, unfortunately, are TOO far away!) So, I sucked up my concerns, and we made the trip. Luckily, Ella is a better sleeper than my other babies were, she did FABULOUSLY in the car, I feel SO much better than I did after my other babies (except for the fact that I'm still frumpy and have no clothes that fit, but then again, I was frumpy without clothes BEFORE I had Ella), and we've had no issues nursing (knock on wood!). We had a wonderful visit and I was glad we were able to go. I tried to remember to take some pictures, but only remembered a few times. Here's some of the kids opening some gifts the Smith's got them, and making and painting sugar cookies.Steven was able to go to the temple with the Smith family when Sophie went through for the first time. I was so sad I couldn't go too, but with a new baby, it's kind of hard to commit to being gone for three hours. Steven was glad he got to go though.The rest of our visit was uneventful and relaxing. Sophie (who leaves for her mission in a month) has been waking up every morning at 6:30 to prepare for missionary life. She VERY graciously offered to take care of our kids when they woke up so that Steven and I could sleep in. It was SO nice! Nice of her, but also SO nice to get to sleep in! That just doesn't happen too often.

Our drive home was a bit more hectic and loud than our drive there. The kids were rowdy, and we earned our 'Parent' badges by having to threaten 'If you do that again, I promise we'll stop this car and you'll get a spank!' twice, and then we earned the Platinum level of parenting by having to follow through with both of those promises, once for Addie and once for Landon (both of whom laughed at me when I spanked them...) Ella slept pretty much the entire drive (both there and home) and Grant only screamed out when Landon or Addie were bugging him. We were about 30 minutes from home when this:had a run in with this:and our van ended up looking like this:Luckily, no one (except the deer) were hurt, and the van was still drivable so we were able to get home. Even better, Steven worked later today, so he was able to take the van into the shop and get the rental car before he left for work. Hopefully in 9 days, we'll have our van back (although, driving this cute Mazda5 thing kind of gives me the new car bug!). So, that was our Thanksgiving break. With many many things to be thankful for.