thanksgiving and the tree.

missing one at thanksgiving.

baby g.

gpa dave and the grandkids.

gpa dave meets g.
dad and kids decorate the tree.

the kids and i do our best.

cw cried after this picture was taken. aw got the bigger piece of the wishbone.

we spent a fantastic thanksgiving morning at meg's house. we opted out of the huge thanksgiving dinner at my aunt's house in muncie. baby g wasn't even two weeks old when turkey day hit, so we decided it would be best to stay away from the crowd. we had a great time with mom and dad and gma and gpa slopsema. and meg made every breakfast food known to man. we had bacon and sausage patties and sausage links and biscuits and gravy and homemade jam (a thank you) and hashbrowns and homemade waffles and cinnamon rolls and oj and milk and who knows what else. i think i ate my body weight in crispy bacon (meg knows me well). we hung out for a little while and after a few bad pictures we headed out, sans aw. when she heard that em and her family were going to mom's to spend the night she had a bit of an emotional breakdown. she gave everyone an award-winning rendition of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde when we told her that she could go to mom's too. we came home to a house full of turkey stink. mw went all out. all the fixings. except the ones that our canadian friends brought. needless to say, i do not like turkey or smashed potatoes or sweet potatoes or stuffing. but, but, i liked it! mw did a great job. he fixed a juicy, tender, flavorful turkey. and the gravy was good too. cw loved the smashed potatoes. roo wanted no part of any of it. in fact, he slept through dinner. so did the babe. but really. i ate the food. i even ate the stuffing and tried the sweet potatoes (i still can't wrap my head around them). and then we had a fantastic pumpkin dessert. it was a great thanksgiving. we missed our aw, but she was so glad to spend the day with gma. and gma was so glad to have her there for our last indiana thanksgiving. the next day we picked out our tree, a douglas fir, and decorated it with shatterproof bulbs and other non-breakable ornaments. we left the hallmark keepsake ornaments in the storage boxes, as last year we lost five to curious and clumsy hands.