Thanksgiving 09

John and I went East to visit his sister (and mine :), Jennie, and the girls for a wonderful few days over Thanksgiving. Added bonus was his brother, Lee, who flew into PA to stay with Jennie for a few days before Thanksgiving and us for a few days after.

We had lots of fun just eating leftover Thanksgiving food, playing Wii (Mario Kart was a HUGE addiction from Rachel, who's 6 years old on up to John, who just turned... ahem, um, 34), we went to play at the park, we had our "Second Annual Thanksgiving Olympics", John got a haircut from his sister Jennie - while I learned how to cut his curly locks, and we made Gingerbread houses, but unfortunately the roofs were a little tricky and caved in..







Its interesting how you see things when you are pregnant and expecting your first child. John and I love our nieces to death... such wonderful girls - loving, fun, energetic, smart... but I just look at Jennie & Marcus in amazement, I am exhausted after I come home. I think its all part of the master plan that you can't have three children all at once (well, some people do, hello crazy Octomom) because I defintely need to baby-step my way into parenthood. Just one please. And if John and I manage to handle that well, then two. My hat is off to those wonderful parents who raise children (plural) and do it well -- my hat is also off to pregnant women, and new mothers... wait, how many hats can I wear??

Here are some pictures from our Second Annual Thanksgiving Olympics. The teams were captained by Rachel - "The Snow Leopards" (John, Lee and Rachel) and Katelyn - "The Pennsylvania Jaguars" (Jennie, Marcus, Me and Katelyn). Some of the competitions included 1) each team member had to melt an ice cube in their hands and the first team that did that, won (my favorite part was when John and Lee ran to the kitchen sink to melt their ice cube under warm water-still in their hands, TECHNICALLY not cheating, and yelled to Rachel to come over and melt her ice cube, but Rachel defiantely stood up to her uncles and repeatedly yelled that she wasn't "A CHEATER!!" and kept rubbing her cold little hands together. :) What a good example she was to her uncles! 2) A relay race where each team member had to run and get a balloon, pop it, take out the secret letter and then the next team member had to run to get their balloon, pop it and so on. Once all the balloons were popped then the fastest team to unscramble the Thanksgiving day word, won! Again, Rachel impressed us all as the rest of us were trying to sit on our balloons, or stand on them... Rachel just took her two hands and ripped the balloon apart like the Incredible Hulk. Impressive! (the secret word this year was "Family")

Another game was where one person from each team had to try and get the most marshmellows in their mouth. It was Anderson v. Boyer and you can see in the picture below that Lee was trying to motivate John by screaming such inspirational words as... "Whose a CHUBBY BUNNY??!!?" to John. :) Must have worked because he won. (I did worry a bit that he was going to suffocate)



And another game was to find the 5 Swedish fish in a bowl of whipped cream game. Rachel v. Marcus.





I couldn't resist a picture of Emily, who is turning 3 in a couple of months-- Jennie & Marcus really do make gorgeous children.



We love getting to spend Thanksgiving with our fellow Pennyslvania family, can't wait until the rematch next year! And we'll have one more "LeBlanderson" to add to the bunch! :)

Below are a couple of pictures after Thanksgiving when Lee came back to stay with John & I for a couple of days. We love you Lee and are so glad we coerced you into coming out to PA for the holiday! Can't wait to see you again soon!