Thanksgiving 2009 Photo Essay

How was your Thanksgiving? Sorry for the silence in here, but we had traveling plans and there just wasn’t a good time to break away. I wanted to share a little photo essay of the wonderful time we had at Aunt Terry’s house for Thanksgiving with you. Taking pictures is my favorite thing to do (even more favorite than blogging)… so I really love holidays.

Obviously I didn’t take this one. Aunt Laurie took it. Nice of her to offer to get a picture of me. I’m usually in about 1 of 100 shots. That is one of the reasons I love being ‘the photographer’. Notice the 2 inch roots on my July highlight job. Yep. High class, let me tell you. At least we make cute babies.

You’ll notice that Aunt Terry and the rest of the family are missing from the pictures here. Wouldn’t want to get in trouble for sharing photos without permission (and limit my Christmas gift opportunities). We drew names for Christmas with Kev’s mom’s family. Something we do each Thanksgiving. Not tellin’ who’s name I got. You can’t make me spill the beans.

Speaking of beans (even though this has nothing to do with this post)… I’ve been making refried beans around here. I soaked them the night before last, cooked them last night, and plan to refry them today. If they turn out tasting as good as they smell, I will most certainly share the recipe on my food blog for all to enjoy.

Above are Terry’s pumpkin rolls. I think I like the sweet potato better. That’s another recipe I need to put on the food blog. So sad that I neglect that part of my trio of blog efforts. There’s only so much of me to go around with a baby in the scene (especially one that is pulling up and crawling at the speed of light).

Evidence:

One of my favorite things about Kev’s mom’s side of the family is their sweet tea habit. It helps if you don’t have a six hour drive after about six glasses of said tea, however. It really tends to extend your travel time if you overdose on sweet tea. Nuff said.

After we drove to College Station, Texas (home of the Aggies), we drove to Texarkana (on the Texas-Arkansas border). Pretty original name for a town on the Texas-Arkansas border, eh? As strange as it sounds, Mike Huckabee was in town and we missed his book signing. Family is more important than famous people that make great blog photo-essays.

Texas in the fall. Such a strange phenomenon. We don’t get any showy color until the week of Thanksgiving. The leaves are in rapid-change mode by late November. If you blink, you’ll not only miss the color change, but you’ll also miss the actual ‘fall’. Before we left home on Thursday morning, the trees were green with only a few signs of fall (mostly in the grasses)… when we returned on Saturday, half of the deciduous trees had already LOST their leaves. No fair! Morgan took the photo above. She was begging me for the camera all day. She’s really quite talented… but I’m even more stingy. {MY CAMERA. Back off, chick!} No small wonder that she put “camera” on her Christmas list.

I might be content to believe that the reason for Thanksgiving was to eat sweet potatoes. Seriously. It’s as good a reason as any.

Aunt Terry lives in the woods – on a few acres of land. She has all sorts of creatures: Chickens, dogs, cats, lizards, fish, spiders, etc. My kids adore being out there to explore and play. They spend more time outdoors than inside with the big folk when we go eat Thanksgiving lunch there. This is one of her dogs…

… that had a favorite leaf. We don’t know why she carried this leaf around. Maybe she was being festive for the holidays? She wanted to sit in Morgan’s lap while Morgan drew chalk pictures. Why do dogs always want to love on cat people? We got to smell this sweet puppy all the way to Texarkana. No, really, she’s a cute dog. A little eccentric maybe, but certainly nice – for dog people.

I knew there were more reasons to carry a box of wipies in the car than just one, poopy, 8 month-old hiney. Baby wipes also help to keep a six hour car trip less messy after your BIG kids get covered in dog, dirt, Thanksgiving dinner, bubble soap, crushed leaves, and LOTS OF chalk dust.

Kisses for Thanksgiving. How sweet.

Here’s one of my favorites shots of a little cousin below:

Amazingly, I liked the soft look that these “straight-out-of-the-camera” shots had. I didn’t do much to any of them, aside from the ones that are black and white. I used my Canon 40D and a 50 mm portrait lens for everything. Most of them were shot in P mode, too. I didn’t want to have to “think” before clicking. Funny how thinking gets me in trouble when it comes to camera stuff. The camera and lens I was using for these shots was the exact same one that my cousin’s wedding photographer used for her wedding pictures. I got to see the whole slew of those while I was at Terry’s house, too. It gave me hope that one day I can make some money taking pictures… since they didn’t look too difficult to take once I saw them.

Kohen’s favorite part of the day was standing up at the coffee table with his legs spread to prevent a fall, eating Aunt Terry’s wicker coaster set. I’m sure she enjoyed all the slobber he shared. You gotta share things. It’s part of the golden Thanksgiving rule.

Kaden’s favorite part of being at Aunt Terry’s was the trampoline, the garden, hanging out with cousin Jason, being free to dig in the dirt and pretend to shoot things, and of course – Merlin the magic black cat. Merlin liked Kaden, too… because I’m sure Kaden slipped him a few tiny slices of turkey when no one else was looking. See? All my kids are ‘givers’.

There’s me acting goofy. Self portraits in the car are always nice. Gets a giggle out of the kids, anyway.

Then I handed the camera to Morgan. Here’s what she caught. Mooshy stuff. Oh, well. At least she didn’t catch H1N1. There are worster things than seeing mommy and daddy give each other a Thanksgiving kiss. As long as he keeps his eyes on the road, that is…