Our family picture history has been miserable up to this point, so I took advantage of my brother's presence this past weekend and had him take some pictures of us. Thanks to him and to my fabulous husband for letting me rope them into this last second photo shoot. It was nice not having to stress out days in advance about what to wear and how everyone should be styled. We'll leave that to another time.Our Thanksgiving was lots of fun. We drove up to Idaho to spend a couple of days with my side of the family. For me as a kid, Thanksgiving was magical, and we always celebrated with my mom's side. Because it's been YEARS since we've spent Thanksgiving together, my expectations were high. This year's family time didn't disappoint. Thanks again, Aunt Laura Lee and Uncle Benji!
Holidays are hard for me. I'm a festive kind of girl. I'm all for celebrating. The problem is that they rarely live up to the hype. For example, when I think about how Christmas or New Year's ought to be, I'm probably using theatrical references for 80% of my idealization. Real life just has a hard time living up to that. Things like holiday burnout, budget exhaustion, and a scope that includes too many wishes (I wish I could give really well-considered gifts to a lot of people, I don't think it's ever worked out the way I really wish it could), these real life hiccups put a damper on holidays for me.
Thanksgiving is easier, though. It's simply family and food.
It was so nice to have my sister-in-law, brother and our niece with us for a few days. Poor little one had her first experience with an earache and teething pain, and my brother was dealing with a cold, but they were troopers.
Each of the photos in this post were taken on Gabe's birthday. We started off with a berry-filled crepes brunch with friends, then dove into birthday cake baking for the Tayler family party on Sunday. While the BYU-Utah game was on, Brian set up Gabe's birthday present from us: a slide. The pictures below show just how Gabe (and Lucy) reacted to the slide.
By the time we got around to dinner, both kids were asleep, so we enjoyed our dinner with our beloved (beloved? yes. beloved.) guests. Fun day.
This picture sums up how Gabe felt about his birthday.
