Thanksgiving

We had so much fun the week of Thanksgiving! We were brave and took Rachel out of school for 2 days (Texas is quite strict on students being absent). This allowed us to go up to my parents' place for the whole week. It was so nice! It had actually been a year since we had been up there...  Grandma was able to take the whole week off from work. The weather was PERFECT! We enjoyed spending a lot of time outside.  Here's some of the fun that was had...

Tractor rides:

  

Wagon rides:

Ian met dogs for the first time and loved them:

Rachel mastered riding a bike without training wheels. She first gained confidence on this little bike and soon moved on to her own bike.

Playing with minnows while Papa and Daddy fished:

Success! Papa was the lucky one this time:

 

 

Swinging was enjoyed by everyone. Ian's the only one we took pictures of! :)

We had lots of fun inside once it got dark. There were puzzles to do, games to play, snuggling with Papa, playing with the toys, and dressing up with exercise bands (even though Grandma has plenty of dress-up options):

 

One day we ventured to Atlanta State Park. We enjoyed a picnic lunch, the playground, and a mini outdoor theater.

 The girls had fun throwing rocks down the slide.

 They also enjoyed playing on the mini stage.

The Mackay family drove up later on in the week and joined us for Thanksgiving. Aunt Natalie put together a turkey hunt for the kids Thanksgiving morning. They had so much fun listening to the clues and finding the correct turkey. They also had fun setting up the turkeys themselves and sending the adults on a turkey hunt. Here's the kids in action:

It was Ian's first Thanksgiving, so we had to get a picture of him in his turkey shirt:

One day the dads took the 3 big kids out on a boat ride:

 

And of course after the weather got cooler we just bundled everyone up for a tractor ride:

The babies didn't go on the tractor ride. But Landon made sure to give Ian an indoor tractor ride:

 

We enjoyed our week! It was fun for the adults to play games in the evening once all the little ones were in bed. We also introduced my parents to the movie Bernie, which one can only really appreciate if you've spent some time in Northeast Texas. I'm certainly thankful for my parents who live 5 hours away. It makes little trips like these possible and hopefully it won't be an entire year before we head up there next!