Food, Glorious Food!

A couple weeks before Thanksgiving, we wanted to start Viv on real food and gave her rice cereal.  She HATED it.  We tried 3 or 4 times before giving up and going for the good stuff.  I pureed up some bananas and she loved them.  Fast forward to today and she's now had green beans, sweet potatoes, squash, pears, apples and peaches.  Once we get through all of the basic flavors individually, I'm looking forward to getting creative with mixing them together and throwing in some spices.  We did this with Audrey but I don't think we were adventurous enough.  We never took exactly what we were eating and pureed it for her.  I definitely plan to do that this go round.  Hopefully another foodie is in our future!

Her unhappy rice cereal face:

Moving on to yummier things:

Definitely happy now!

And as a bonus - the Big Sister!

Viv at School!

Audrey isn't the only one who gets to have fun at school.  My heart melts when I see my little one smiling, having fun and PAINTING!  :) :) :)  Sorry for the bad quality - some of these are pictures of pictures.

Painting with corn:

More painting!

"I'm Stuffed"

Here's a turkey she made  :)

Playing with a cut pumpkin:

And my absolute favorite - this is on her crib:

Happy Thanksgiving!

So it was supposed to be my parents' (aka my mom's) turn to host Thanksgiving this year.  We discussed still having it at my dad's but having me and my sister-in-law cook.  Ultimately, Bill and I decided to just bite the bullet and host it ourselves.  What a fun decision!  We had a lot of work to do because we were expecting 17-20 people and our house doesn't have a lot of space.  We took this opportunity to get the finished side of our basement cleaned up and turned into a game room (in the end, not a single person hung out down there - that's okay though - at least it's done now! :)  Anyway, we had a blast.  I love my family!!  We ended up having 17 people, the food turned out really well and no one got food poisoning!  I only wish my mom was here to see me hosting my first big family event.  I think I would have done her proud.

My brother (Uncle Sean!) hanging with Viv

Cousins!

My cousins Kelly and Casey

The 23 lb bird.  It looks pretty dark but turned out really well.  We highly recommend brining.  It may have been a tad salty but the flavor was excellent!  My mom actually bought us the brine mix from Williams-Sonoma so I guess she was kind of there that day helping out afterall.  :)

My aunt, Samantha and Kelly

One without me

One with me  :)

The other side of the table

The other turkey!

My uncle and Casey

Victoria and Samantha

Playing outside.  This is exactly what my brother, cousins and I would do when we were little during family get togethers!

Audrey hanging with the big girls.

This picture makes me laugh:

Playing Left Right Center:

Opening some early birthday gifts:

Love, love, love this pic!

The four of us.  Hope you all had great Thanksgivings too!