thanksgiving '12

Thanksgiving this year was so laid back & full of tradition. We headed up to the Waters & settled in for a flippin' good time on Thanksgiving weekend. These photos were taken when I remembered my camera, when I felt like taking pictures instead of the pressure to document every.single.moment. It was glorious to just enjoy my family and make so many memories.

I woke up early on Thursday (gasp!) and we hit the road not long after. Andrew Garfield kept me company (aka I watched the Amazing Spiderman on the way up).

On the ride up. The leaves were gone early this year thanks to Sandy's winds so no beautiful foliage pictures :(

We arrived around 11 to Quinn & Garrison raking leaves. Hugs all around, and Zeke wasn't left out either...

Sweet puppy.

My family is awesome guys. We always try new recipes when we get together, and Aunt Ann Marie made a amazing Turkey cheeseball she got of Pinterest. No one knew what the red bell pepper was called so we googled it. That's just the way we are. We killed that thing way before the actual turkey was even ready.

A semi-weird tradition in our family is to walk through houses under construction. It's so calming to me, to walk through a brand-new house that hasn't been lived in, awaiting a family to make it a true home. The neighborhood they live in has huge houses, and we took a break from eating the turkey cheeseball to walk through the latest site.

where's waldo Brock?

Crazy kid got up in the rafters.

Family time while waiting for the food to finish cooking & watching football (it was ALWAYS one in the background. no lie).

Precious <3

Brock isn't as clueless as he looks.

Watching fail videos I think. There was plenty of laughing over stupid Youtube videos that weekend.

Pretty sure he's looking at the sports section, FYI.

TURKEY YOU WERE YUMMY.

Readers, my mom is beautiful.

Finishing touches on the dinner.

Finally sitting down to eat...the boys were done in no time flat. Shocker.

HOLY PLATE OF GOODNESS. Note the perfect drink with this is Dr. Pepper. AMEN.

After the meal was consumed and we were significantly sleepier than when we started, we all sat down to watch more football. In case you couldn't tell, we flippin' love football in our family. Our Skins were playing and we all settled in upstairs after a post-meal walk with Zeke & the cartwheel queen Quinn. She did 300 cartwheels. Forget Shawn Johnson; Quinn's my gymnastic hero! And don't worry, we gained all those calories we burned on our walks by having chocolate pecan pie, cheesecake, and crockpot candy watching the game on big screen.


Making fun of the lady on TV. Goobers.

Five million rounds of Catch Phrase later (OK, only five), we fell into bed in a turkey induced coma and didn't wake up for a long time. Well, I didn't at least...I got the award for last one up that morning. For two solid hours we sat around the kitchen table with our morning beverages of choice and just talked. It was so great.

Keurig iced tea = a new love.

Another walk, this time through the woods to see what the boys had been doing since they got up Friday morning. They cleared a path to the deer stand that no one would dare go up.

Crazy-looking catapillar.

A trench they built, expecting an attack from only one side.

Clark made it not even half way up. Fear of heights runs in the family.

And now I leave you with the Christmas card pictures of both our families...Waters first.

These kids are Clark and mine's best friends. I just like it's so cool that we have such a good time with our cousins. Love fest about my family: over.

We took a little bit longer to get ready (Clark and his hair are a beast), but we finally got ready.

Nobody seemed to think I needed to be told that my hair was crazy so I just stood there. 

See what I mean about the hair? Oh well. 

::sobs because my family is so beautiful::

Holiday weekends are the best, agreed? I hope your Thanksgiving was as flippin' awesome and full of good times as mine.