Thanksgiving Pictures Part 2

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving today! We we went to my aunt and uncle's house and ate a little, played The Beattles rockband a little, "ooed" and "awed" over Bob's motorcycle a little, laughed at Riley's antics, ate a little more, played a little more Beatles rockband, "ooed" and "awed" over the motorcycle a little more, laughed at Riley's antics MUCH more, and then topped it all off with dessert. I seriously think I could POP!

Riley was hillarious today and very sweet. She has really become so much more outgoing and social around strangers and tonight was no exception. She seemed very comfortable around a lot of Brenda's friends (although she mostly hung around the people she knew) but she definitely took a liking to my cousin Jonathan. I have always thought that Riley was very comfortable around men and Jonathan was no exception. She LOVED playing the piano with him tonight (piano lessons in the future??), being held by him and being thrown around by him. She seemed very comfortable with Jonathan :-) It was really cute!

Bob of course took my sister Katie for a ride on the motorcycle, which as I said above, was a huge hit. There was a German family at Brenda's tonight and apparently the father used to own a motorcycle when they lived in Germany. Apparently motorcycles are very big over there? Anyways, he brought out his mack daddy camera from Brenda's house and was snapping away at Bob's bike! Then later they talked outside for a bit about...well, motorcycles I assume :-) The other vehicle that was a huge hit was Katie's new car. She got to show it off a bit so I know she was happy :-)

Inside Guitar Hero was going all night and also The Beatles Rockband. I sang some and Bob, Jonathan and Derek all played the other 3 instruments that were there. Riley of course just STARED at me when I was singing. I think she was rather puzzled as to what the microphone was. Or maybe it was my crack-a-lackin voice! :-)

Brenda had the following dinner (which I seriously don't know how she pulled off): fruit salad, crackers with cheese, a pickle tray and regular salad as appetizers and then turkey, yummy gravy, pork tenderloin, broccoli salad, regular salad, green bean casserole (I made and Katie, as you can see in the picture, LOVED), regular green beans, corn, rolls, homemade sweet potato casserole, homemade mashed potatoes, homemade chocolate and banana cream cake (my grandmother's recipe and one of my favorites), homemade pumpkin pie, homemade apple struesel with a sweet sauce to go on top, homemade chocolate pudding pie (another favorite), homemade whipped cream to go with it all and my oreo balls. So yummy! And then the craziest thing is that when it was all said and done, it looked like hardly any of the food had been dented! How is that possible that 20 people can eat so little? Or did we really have that much food...

Lastly, there were 3 birthdays to celebrate tonight! Bob's birthday (Tuesday December 1st), my cousin Jonathan's birthday (Sunday) and a lady named Joan's birthday (Sunday also). So Brenda used chocolate/banana cake and everyone sang to the 3 birthday people tonight :-) Riley of course LOVED the candles and the singing :-) She stood in the middle of the room while everyone surrounded her and Brenda with the cake. I definitely think she liked being the center of attention!

Okay, more pictures tomorrow. I figure 20-something pictures is enough for tonight :-) So did you eat as much as we did? I definitely plan on running sometime tomorrow!

Fun at Cracker Barrel!

The other day Bob, Riley and I went to Cracker Barrel for lunch and it was so yummy! Bob wasn't too excited about it because he doesn't like the food there but since we hadn't been in a while he was okay with going and letting me enjoy the moment! Such a sweet hubby :-) It must be a southern thing, this love of Cracker Barrel. I absolutely LOVE it, especially their salads, so of course, that's what I ordered.

When we got there, it was really empty so Bob and Riley sat on the rocking chairs next to each other and looked so cute!! Riley was perfectly content to sit and rock next to her daddy (he actually moved the chair) and she kept smiling and looking all around. Eventually she wanted to get down and run around from chair to chair banging on each of the seats. One of my favorite pictures of all time is the one where they are sitting next to each other and Riley is looking up at Bob and he is looking down at her. So adorable :-)

Then we went inside and it was like a Christmas EXPLOSION! If you haven't been to Cracker Barrel when they are decorated for Christmas, holy cow it's an experience! They have SO MUCH Christmas stuff and TONS of toys for children so we totally had a ball hanging out in the gift store for a while. Bob was really into the different musical instruments they had and he kept demonstrating the clappers for Riley :-) Riley LOVED these little pony heads that were each on a long stick for pretending to ride. They actually made horse sounds too. We picked up the pony head and I tried to demonstrate how you pretend to ride the pony around the store and of course, Bob thought I was a goofball :-) Riley wanted to mainly kiss the horse heads but she did have fun dragging one of the horses around the store. I didn't get any more pictures playing in the store because well, I was playing too! :-)

We finally went to eat and Bob snapped a few pictures of Riley coloring. She totally ditched that though when she VERY QUICKLY saw the little peg game! She had a BLAST playing with that for a while and then we had to clean her hands before she ate. It was a bit hard for her to stick the little pegs in the small holes but she still LOVED that toy/game! Overall, a fun time at Cracker Barrel!

Puppy Love

Okay so not only does Riley love the huge fluffy puppy on our floor but so does Elmo! He sleeps on it every chance he gets and that is like, ALL the time. Okay well actually the amount of time that Elmo sleeps during the day is very limited but during those times, he totally konks on the fuzzy puppy. I only included 2 pictures of the dog sleeping on the puppy though because I figured you mostly want to see pictures of Riley :-)

The next pictures are of Riley and Bob playing on the puppy after dinner one night. Usually after dinner and before bath is "play on the floor with daddy time" so I snapped a few pictures of the two of them together.

As most of you know, Riley LOVES to read so most of the time, the second she gets you still and in one spot, she brings you a book. So that's what she did to Bob. When I was little, I would go entire weekends with just reading. I remember my mom asking me to come out of the room and get some fresh air but I soooo didn't want to! All I wanted to do was sit and read for hours on end. I wonder if Riley will be like her momma? :-)