IT'S DECEMBER!!! But first Thanksgiving....

We are decking the halls with bows of holly and wishing you a Merry Christmas because it is Christmas time in the city! I love it! We had a great Thanksgiving with Andy's parents and Kemper's side of the family. First a couple fun pictures of the girls. If I had known that buttons would have occupied Hadley for....I kid you not, at least 45 minutes.....then I would have let her spill them much earlier. Who knew....buttons?

Enjoying Hadley's favorite seat in the house....her Dora couch. Joni is almost sitting up by herself does really well when supported. She likes Hadley's couch too.
Joni loves bending backwards like this too. I think she likes to look at things upside-down (who doesn't, really). Anyways, Hadley thought it was great and so here they are.
On to Thanksgiving....so we drove up to Milwaukee on Tuesday afternoon (pretty quick 7 hours thanks to the movie player from Oma and Opa---I'm not going to tell you what movie she watched because I'm sure you all know :)) The next morning we got up, had some doughnuts (see below) and headed to Minneapolis, MN to spend Thanksgiving at Kemper's cousin's house. Margaret is married to Greg and has twin daughters (Katie and Jenny who held Joni for 4 days straight). Margaret's sister, Mary, came too. Two of Andy's uncles, their families, and his Grandma Marge from Worland were also there. Lots of people, lots of fun!
Brian (Kemper's brother), his sons Curran and Callahan, and one of the twins.....I'm going to say Katie. (Sorry girls if you read this and I guessed wrong!)
Trying to get Joni to fall asleep....she tends to not want to do that when there are people to watch and kids to play with.
Just sitting around visiting....Margaret had some pop-up tents to play with, which Hadley did!
She also had some stuffed animals....Hadley found this bear she really liked and then took all it's clothes off and put one of her clean diapers on it.....she is turning into quite the "little mommy!"
Hadley and Papa
So on Thanksgiving, Margaret had the meal ordered from a catering place and it was INCREDIBLE! We ate so much good food! Then we all went to check out the Mall of America. Since it was Thanksgiving Day, the stores were all closed but you could still walk around inside. The roller coaster ride section was also open so Hadley got to go on a few.
She loved this bus and didn't mind just crawling in and playing with the steering wheel. Who says you have to spend lots of money to ride a bunch of rides when you can just play in something like this for free.
"Come Mama..." She took me for a ride too.

A ride we paid for.....she had fun though and that's what counts.
A big part of the crew....Mary, me, Katie, Kemper, Caroline (Andy's other cousin---Curran and Callahan's sister for those of you who really want to know :)), Jenny, and Andy
The grand kids, and great-grand kids at the mall (Grant and Anna--more cousins, and everyone else). Yes we are crazy and went to the mall on Black Friday. Little different scene let me tell you! Andy and I met up with some good friends from Laramie who live in Minnesota now (thanks for coming Winegars!) and everyone else went shopping.
Hadley headed down to the pool. We tried to go swimming every night since we were staying at a hotel that had a pool and a hot tub. We heard "Go swimmin" a lot that week.
We just thought this picture was good. Our camera goes underwater and this is Grant...and some bubbles.
The pool was a little chilly but Hadley loves it! It was fun actually being able to swim with Andy instead of him just watching us.
Almost the whole family....Joni didn't get in but she came down to watch with Nana.
Callahan didn't want to go swimming either....who would really when there are cute babies to hold.
Sitting in the hot tub....I'm pretty sure Callahan took this picture. Not too bad.
This is what we did every morning....as we'd wake up, we would go get something to eat and the last person at the table had to pay......just kidding. Thank you Hubers for EVERYTHING!
My cute girls are getting so big....I plan on doing more of this (dressing them alike) until they get to the age when they can dress themselves (I realize this will come sooner than I think). Janet picked out these outfits and I love them.
We had a great time!! The trip home took a little longer with Thanksgiving traffic and accidents but we made it safe and sound. Just a couple more weeks and we fly to Wyoming for Christmas. Hope you all have a wonderful December and remember the reason for the season. Love to you all.