holiday fun

So I thought I'd add a quick update following the Thanksgiving holiday. We had a great Thanksgiving this year. Josh was on call so we had to stay in Michigan, but we were lucky that family came up so we didn't have to be alone. Josh's sister was in town for the past couple of weeks from Tulsa. We loved getting to spend more time with Vanessa and the kids had blast getting to play with cousin Victoria. My parents planned to come up with my granddpa, so we were excited that we would still get Thanksgiving with family and the grandparents. It was my first time really hosting a big Thanksgiving where I actually planned everything and handled the majority of the cooking and housed people... the whole shibang! I started cooking on Wednesday and planned to have everything wrapped up that night when my parents came in because we were going to order pizza and all snuggle to watch the new Disney move, Up. (BTW, BEST movie out there right now!) So, I was in the kitchen finishing the stuffing and I was on the phone with my mom who was about an hour away from the house. Suddenly, the dog started barking and we hear a knock on the door. (odd, because we were not expecting anyone at tht moment) So, Vanessa opened the door and I hear gleeful screaming from all of the kids (including Josh) and then see Josh run across the foyer and leap (yes, leap) full body into another man's arms. As it turned out, my brother and his wife had driven all the way from Virginia Beach to surprise us for Thanksgiving. BEST SURPRISE EVER! So we got to have Dan and Lauren with us as well and it was awesome. We very much missed the other boys though. Dave is stll in China. He enjoyed mongolian barbeque for Thanksgiving (with dog meat, which is apparently kind of a specialty meat over there). And then Ben and Sarah and the kids were in NY where Ben was working most of the holiday. His first big holiday as a doctor... working... typical. We also celebrated Isaac's first birthday during dessert because half of the family was out of the country on his actual birthday. He enjoyed his carrot cake cupcake, aside from the moments when nearly suffocated himself by shoving icing up his nose. But once we cleared out his nostrils, he enjoyed his cake. =) We decorated the Christmas tree and the house last weekend and are full-blown in the Christmas spirit around here. We've spent the rest of the week just hanging with Josh's sister and now that she has headed back to Tulsa, we are gearing up to do our Christmas shopping. Not terribly exciting, but that's the recent happenings around here. Happy holidays! Here's few pics from the past week.

Isaac was not so sure about everybody singing loudly and staring at him during Happy Birthday.

Seth was in the Christmas spirit. We found him like this the night we decorated the tree.

And not to leave out Lilah... on her way up for a bath. She's ready if butt cleavage ever makes a comeback (not that we would let her out of the house like that) It's funny because the poor thing always looks like this. She just can't seem to keep that tucked into her pants, ever.  =)