Musings & Pictures from Thanksgiving Week

Jamie and I try to stick to a pretty good schedule of flip flopping the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with our families, and this year we were really looking forward to a DeSpain Thanksgiving. Plus, we’d actually never spent Thanksgiving in our own home since getting married in 2011, so we were pumped to finally do the hosting for this particular holiday. We originally thought this would work out beautifully because Jamie would more than likely be home from Poland by then, but when we got news that he wouldn’t be home in time, everyone decided to stick to the plan anyway and enjoy the holiday here in Kansas minus our favorite guy.

My mother-in-law, father-in-law, and grandmother-in-law joined the girls and me, and their company and helping hands couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. We were grateful for the change of pace and had a great visit!

Mamaw and Hadley got right to work on the Thanksgiving desserts upon her arrival, and Sadie did a fabulous job of watching the oven nearly the entire time the pies baked. 🙂

Mamaw came ready with new nail polish to give Hadley an at-home manicure and pedicure (melt my heart), and I couldn’t resist capturing the moment and taking a picture of their sweet hands together.

We enjoyed a tasty Thanksgiving meal that I actually had catered from our local Hy-Vee to eliminate any unnecessary work amidst trying to get everything ready to receive company. I almost canceled the meal 100 times because I’d think “I just need to cook!” but in hindsight, I’m so glad we catered. My in-laws didn’t arrive until Thursday morning, so having that day to relax and be together instead of hustling around the kitchen was pretty great. Home cooked meals are always better in my opinion, but this year, catering was an option I’m grateful a local girlfriend suggested!

We did a little bit of playing indoors…

… as well as a bunch of playing outdoors soaking up five unseasonably warm days.

My in-laws helped me get a Christmas tree, which was the easy part…

…but getting it home was a different story! About five minutes after this picture was taken, our tree went flying off the car, landing it front of a ton of cars that all had to slam on their brakes. That first minute or so after it fell off was pretty chaotic, but thank you Jesus for zero accidents! Whew. Dodged a bullet (tree?) there.

The kindest man (a.k.a. a total angel!) stopped immediately to help us quickly grab it out of the street and figure out how to get it the remaining three miles home (a.k.a stuffed into my Jeep’s trunk!) The moral of the story: make darn sure that your tree is tied down securely, and don’t follow too closely behind those who are hauling things outside of their vehicles.

The girls had so much fun getting out the ornaments and hanging them on the tree. Their overwhelming joy really surprised me! Look at Sadie’s face! She must have thought all of the ornaments were new toys because she was squealing with excitement and laughter for two hours as I got everything out of Rubbermaids. We were all cracking up!

During the visit my father-in-law graciously bagged a ton of leaves despite Hadley’s best attempt to mutilate every pile. 🙂

We had a fun mid-day outing to our local zoo, which is seriously the best because even a four year old can walk the entire thing in just over an hour. At just $5/person, this zoo is one of the many, many things I adore about Manhattan!

Hadley got to take her preschool class bear named Fuzzy home for the week, so Fuzzy went on a few adventures with us that we had to document for her class binder. Homework for Mommy has begun. 😉 Seriously though, Hadley was so proud to take Fuzzy around town, and reading through Fuzzy’s previous adventures and seeing pictures was fun. Her teachers are the cutest and I love that they do this with the kids.

We got to FaceTime with Jamie a ton, and he enjoyed getting to knock out seeing all of his favorite people with just one phone call at a time. Ha!

And by the end of the weekend, the princesses were happily wiped out after a fun few days with family. Daddy will be home before we know it, and that has us feeling like we can totally make it through just a few more weeks (days?) until his arrival.

I hope you enjoyed a restful, enjoyable Thanksgiving as well!

PS: Thanksgiving in Madison, Alabama 2016 | Thanksgiving in Birmingham, Alabama 2015 (during Jamie’s deployment to Kuwait)