Some Thanksgiving Pics & Some Blogging Freedom

Well. I didn't make my Valentine's Day deadline to catch up on holiday posts. I finally realized this past weekend though that there are so many other things I've wanted to post about since 2010 hit the calendar, but my A-type personality has convinced me that these posts have to be in chronological order (sounds logical, right?) which would ultimately mean I couldn't move on without covering the end of 2009. The sane part of me finally took over my brain and has allowed me to have some freedom with this blog. Life altering revelation, I know, especially when there are a million more deeply important areas I need freedom with besides my blog, right? So, with freedom now here, I'm going to let go and move on in the blogging world. I'll blog about the holidays as the posts come together and keep blogging about 2010 at the same time. Ah, deep breath and in comes the freedom. (If you're an A-type, you get me completely right now, while non-A-types quit reading a dozen lines ago. It's okay. I understand. All of you should be rolling your eyes at my long-winded sarcasm, because I certainly am. I haven't lost sight of reality, and, yes, my life perspective is still intact.).


For my post about Thanksgiving, it starts with the fact that we were blessed to get to spend the entire week in Lubbock. It had been way too many months since this West Texas girl had seen some good ol' cotton fields and an open sky full of stars! West Texas was calling my name!

After looking through all of our pictures, I came up with one word for the week...PLAY...that is what we did the whole time...we played, and we played hard!

On our way to the South Plains, we stopped first to visit my grandmother in Snyder. We usually drive through the night on the way to Lubbock so the kids (and Mommy) can sleep. We left around midnight and then got to Mama's house just in time for everyone to wake up and have a home cooked breakfast. Breakfast never looked so good to this group of travelers!





Once we got up the Caprock, Daddy crashed after a long night of driving, and the kids started playing from the minute they hit the door.





Since Garrett loves art and to paint, his Honey had the great idea to take the kids on their first full day in town to a pottery painting place there in town called "Art Avenue". Garrett picked out a piggy bank to paint with Papa and Honey. He painted it the colors of his room and now has it up on his bookshelf.









We ended with the kids both getting their feet painted and imprinted on a couple of Christmas plates for Mommy and Honey. Once the kids' feet were on there, the lady asked us if we wanted to do the actual art work ourselves. Apparently there are creative women in the this world who would be able to do that and enjoy it. My perfectionist side would have me still there today painting. I decided to leave it to the professionals. The plates turned out so adorable!








The weather there was abnormally warm that week, especially for November. (It snowed on Garrett's first Thanksgiving in Lubbock.) Since the weather was so pretty, we took the kids to a new park called "Legacy Park". It was one of the coolest parks I've been to with Garrett. It had a huge, several stories high castle in the middle, and you could wind up and down inside of it. I don't think Garrett ever stopped moving the whole time we were there.




























We didn't need our coats at the park, but we definitely needed them the night we went to "The Corn Maize". It's a massive, and I mean massive, corn maize on the edge of town. Garrett, along with his Honey, Papa, & Daddy, embarked on their journey while the rest of us hung out near the front, ultimately ending up in the car. The adventurers had a ball trying to find their way out the mass of corn.



















As if wearing a Texas Tech sweatshirt all day one day and then walking through a huge corn maize in the shape of Raider Red wasn't enough indoctrination of Raiderland so far, my parents decided that we should warm up after the corn maize with dinner and then teach Garrett to get his "guns up" in the lobby of the restaurant! (This picture was taken pre-Leach saga time!)




Thanksgiving lunch at Mom and Dad's house was delicious! I look forward to having that exact meal either at Thanksgiving or Christmas every year!







I think Grace's favorite part though was dessert. My sister, Emily, started a tradition with Garrett two years ago at Thanksgiving by getting him a "Happy 1st Thanksgiving" cake, kind of a warm up to his 1st birthday tear up cake.



This year, it was Grace's turn to dig into the cake!











I love the look on her face..."Mommy, are you sure I'm supposed to be doing this?!?"



"What in the world did these adults just let me do?!?"



Two fists full of cake made for one happy girl!



At the end of the week, we had dinner with some family friends to celebrate Doug's birthday.



My poor kids were surrounded by Red Raiders the whole entire week. There was some major deprograming going on in the car on the way back home!



Garrett loves when we get to see the Davis', especially Hannah and Hunter. The kids were so sweet to play with him the whole night. He thought he was their age, no doubt.






The rest of the week was spent doing some more heavy duty playing!




























Click here to see the rest of the Thanksgiving pictures.