Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, and more Thanksgiving!

We kicked off our Thanksgiving celebrations on Monday night with our small group from church. We have been meeting weekly with Taiwanese university students and have all become such good friends. We decided to have a traditional Thanksgiving meal for them last Monday night at our house.

Todd and Jared fried the turkey, but not until after I had de-gutted it and injected it with giant needle-fuls of marinade. It was not my favorite Thanksgiving moment. My dad had to coach me through the whole process over the phone!!!
Perhaps the cutest moment of the night was when we were getting Laney ready for bed and her friend Tyce jumped in (literally) with her!! They were laughing so hard and so were the rest of us.


Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, we were lucky enough to get to visit all of our Stockton friends...Lamar, Jill and Tyler, and Topher, Leya, and new baby Drew! We all got together at LynnAnn's house on Wednesday night for yummy paninis. Laney loved all LynnAnn's "toys"


And now on to the next Thanksgiving celebration! Every year my family participates in the Dallas Turkey Trot. Notice I say participates. While there have been years that we have run, this was not one of them. We were definitely walking with all our strollers in tow! This year we decided to add one more tradition to the mix. We met at our house this morning for a breakfast of pumpkin oatmeal pancakes and hot chocolate. We love any excuse to all be together, so I think that this tradition is one that will be repeated!

So probably the highlight of our Trot experience is that we ride the DART train into Dallas. Grant has loved it for the past four years and the rest of the kids are quickly joining him in his love!


Here are a few pictures from the Trot. We started at the very back of the pack and were moving really really slowly. At one point the only person behind us in the entire race was on crutches. Seriously! We then decided that we needed to take a small detour thus landing us back in the middle of the masses.

One of the reasons for our slow pace! Laney wanted to walk with us. She was so cute, but so slow!

On our way home, we got on the wrong train and had to make a series of switches to get headed back in the right direction. Laney and Claire found this map of routes and were helping to navigate!!

We finally made it home from the Trot and then raced over to Todd's mom's house for a traditional meal with her and Hailey. We picked our sweet friend Echo up along the way. She is our FriendSpeak partner from Taiwan and this was her very first Thanksgiving!!! It was also the first time that she saw snow! It snowed for about 15 minutes, but poor Laney was asleep and missed it all! She took a great nap at Grandmommy's house....must have been all the triptophan in Grandmommy's yummy turkey!


PICKLES AND PIES!!!!
Our Thanksgiving evening is always spent at my mom's house for our annual Pickles and Pies celebration! We call it that because it is all the befores and afters of the Thanksgiving meal. Lots of dips, spreads, olives, pickles, cheese, and yummy desserts. My mom sets it all out beautifully and we just eat eat eat the entire time we are there.

Laney truly is the Big Dipper. She loves to dip her food in whatever dipping sauce is available and hardly ever even eats the dipper. She just goes for the dip! So, Pickles and Pies was a definite hit with her!

We changed the kids into their jammies while we were there. They were laying down and pretend sleeping on mom's concrete floors. Then they finished the night off all playing the piano with Jack. It was so cute!!


Next Stop: Nocona!!
We left Friday morning to spend the weekend with Pops, Nae Nae and Aunt Jen in Nocona! Laney had so much fun playing with them, mooing at cows, and walking around their house with her booster strapped to her bootie. It was hysterical. She was cracking herself up waggling along with a booster bootie.





Laney loves Pops and Nae Nae's microwave. It is down on her level, and yanking it open then slamming it shut again is the most fun game ever!



We were supposed to have yet another celebration with my dad yesterday, but the yucky weather prevented him from being able to drive in. We will have to be content with the 4 Thanksgivings that we were able to have!!!

Austin!!

Last weekend we took a quick trip down to Austin. Austin holds a lot of appeal for us because two of our favorite couples ever live there. Lamar and Jill live in North Austin with cute Tyler. Laura and David just moved into their brand spanking new house and we just had to see it in person. Holy Moly!! It is beautiful! Laura has the absolute best taste ever so I am not surprised at all that her home looks like the page of a magazine! It was so fun getting to spend time with them. We got to spend most of the day Saturday just chillin at their house with them and their new puppy, Churchill...so cute!
Both Laura and David genuinely love Laney and it is so clear that they love spending time with her. She loved all their attention!

Here is everyone playing on the floor with Church, the "bark bark" in Laney's words

We had such a great time with Lamar and Jill too! We got to see them on Friday night and on our way out on Saturday. It definitely wasn't enough time for my liking, but it was so good to see them and their growing little boy! Jill has a very funny account of Laney and Tyler's interaction together on her blog
This picture was about five minutes after we got to their apartment. Laney clearly doesn't play hard to get. Tyler took a little longer to warm up! Don't worry, sparks were flying by the end of our visit!

The next day, they were so cute playing together.

Laney really does love hugging her friends. Sometimes she is a little "Lenny, from Of Mice and Men" but she means well!

And some sweet goodbye kisses! Thank goodness we only have to wait until Thanksgiving to see the Stockton family again!


A few pictures to show off Laney's cute new haircut! We love it!


Laney participated in her very first 5K this morning! Our friends, Jason and Virginia Paredes are in the process of adopting their son from China. Their small group from church hosted this morning's Run for a Son to help raise money to cover some of the adoption cost. We are so excited for Jason and Virginia and were thrilled to be able to participate. My mom and Kevin came too and they pushed Laney in her stroller while Todd and I ran. We had a great time!! It left us excited for this Thursday's Dallas Turkey Trot!!!

Laney's First Haircut.....with us!

We have been thinking for a while that Laney's crazy hair might need to be cut. Todd calls her "hulk hair" in the mornings, before I have officially bowed her for the day. It is just a little jagged around the edges.....but it has been looking more and more like a mullet these days, so I had to succumb.
I have to clarify that this was not officially her first haircut, since her head was shaved at the orphanage when she was three months old. I can definitely still remember getting our very first update pictures after our referral and opening up them up to see our little Laney totally bald! Still as cute as can be though.

Laney did a great job in Rebecca's chair! She never fussed a bit and even let Rebecca blow dry her hair with a round brush and curl it with a curling iron! What can I say, my girly little girl was in her element!




Here are a couple pictures post hair cut. She really does look so cute and so much like a big girl.



On a completely different note, Laney was helping Todd rake leaves last weekend. She has her own little rake that she was getting quite a kick out of. Work turned into play and we ended up destroying a lot of Todd's piles. It was worth it for all the belly laughs that we got to hear!







CONGRATULATIONS LYNNANN AND PAUL!!!!!
My sweet friend LynnAnn came over last Saturday night with a surprise for us. We weren't home when they got to our house, but we pulled up while they were still in our driveway! I had an idea of why they might be at our house unannounced, so I shouted to Todd to stop the truck so that I could jump out and find out if my hunch was right! It was!!!! They are engaged.....note the fabulous ring that is being showcased in our picture!!!!! I am so happy for my wonderful friend. She is amazing and deserved to be loved the way that Paul loves her!!!