Thankful for Family

This Thanksgiving was kind of a big deal.  My mom has 5 brothers and sisters, and the last time we were all together was about 6 years ago.  Adding to that, my cousin, Kyle, and his wife just had a cute little boy, as well as our addition of sweet Annabelle.  My grandmother's health has been steadily declining in the last several years, which means she can no longer travel.  Adding all those things together, everyone in the family decided to do all they could so we could all be together for Thanksgiving.  You just never know how many holidays you have left once your grandparents really start getting sick.  Definitely want to take advantage of the time they are still here!

We started the trek to my grandmother's bright and early at 5:00 am.  Annabelle did incredibly well!  Given the fact she's still eating every 2 hours, we were super scared at how much time we would have to add for feeds.  Turns out we only had to add about an hour to our drive time.  WHEW!  Thank you Lord!  We introduced Annabelle to Baby Einstein and she loved it!  Mommy and Daddy loved it too because she was out in about 5 minutes!

As far as Annabelle and lots of people, she did ok.  It was about 22 people all together in one house.  Any house gets small with that amount of people!   We say it's kinda like the close talker episode of Seinfield....she just doesn't like close talkers, or loud talkers for that matter.  If you come at her with that loud baby talk right in her face she will freak out people.  No amount of warnings seem to work for people.  Annabelle starts whaling, mom steps in to calm baby down, then someone else wants to "try."  I wish it were different, but that's just the way she is.

We have very few pics from the trip.  I was so busy feeding, trying to eat myself, and trying to talk with family I wasn't even thinking about pictures.  Here's what we got...

Here's the introduction to Baby Einsteins.

And 5 minutes later.

Annabelle meeting her first fish.

Incredible view out the back porch.

4 generations!  So grateful to get this picture!

Annabelle with Great Grandma.

The whole crew (minus my mom the photographer)

The obligatory cousin picture.  Love that we're somewhat color coordinated!