Thanksgiving

After a series of changed plans, we ended up spending Thanksgiving here in Birmingham without any extended family. I still ended up cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and we had a very nice time together. We started a few family traditions for our little family, and actually enjoyed a very peaceful and relaxed holiday together. We raked and played in the leaves all morning. After baths and naps, Daddy took the boys on a bike ride so I could cook. Then we all sat down and feasted together. We carried on a tradition that Marcus loves of sharing five things that we are particularly thankful for from this year. Caleb was old enough to get in on it this year, and during his turns he was thankful for "bread," "Tabitha," "the party place," "cake" and "my big house." Marcus and I shared thanks for Ethan's birth, Marcus matching in radiation oncology, selling our house, finding such a great house here, 2-day weekends, a good commute for Marcus, God's gift of stamina for Ethan's sleeping, and for growing in love and understanding in our marriage. After dinner, we all went together to get our Christmas tree. We decorated in spurts through the rest of the weekend. Caleb is VERY excited that "Chis-mas is coming!"

Family Visits

Aunt Wendi did a P.A. rotation about 4 hours south of us, so she came up to visit us for a weekend in early November. We went hiking together and had a lot of fun. She and Marcus cooked up a plan for her to shadow him the following week. So she drove back to Florida on Monday morning and came back here Wednesday night to shadow Marcus Thursday and Friday. We had another fun weekend together, which included more hiking and even discovering a neat outdoor festival. I can't get over how gorgeous this place is in the fall. The trees, the colorful leaves, the air, the temperature...just everything! We can't get enough of being outside!

Then Uncle Josh and Aunt Traci and Mimi all decided they were coming to visit the following weekend, so Wendi laughed and agreed to make the drive one more time. It has sort of been a month of family visiting (a big part of my long lag in blog posts :)

Halloween

Sorry for the long lag...its such a busy time of year, and Ethan crawling makes sure that I have very little down time. Anyway, here are some Halloween pics, very, very late :) We went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood with several families from Marc's work, and then went to a Halloween party in our neighborhood afterwards. (Aunt Wendi was in town and she stayed at home with sleeping Ethan after the trick-or-treating.) Enjoy the pics!