Thanksgiving 2015 and a Baby Shower!

Samuel's first Thanksgiving weekend started off at Nana and Papa's. 

We arrived on Wednesday evening and were up bright and early to watch the parade on Thanksgiving day.

Both Millie and Samuel were captivated by the Thanksgiving Day Parade

Great Grandma Fredericksen also stayed the night at Nana and Papa's, so they had some time to hang out before it was time to go to the party.

Nana knows how to make Samuel smile!

Aunt Mel and Uncle Russ hosted Thanksgiving at their house. There was so much great food and it was great to see everyone. This was the first time that Samuel was getting to meet cousins Staci, Denys and Jayden!

The turkey cheeseball I made (I didn't get a picture before some of it was eaten!)

Taylor wanted the turkey leg all to herself!

After lunch, there was time to hang out and time for some Samuel snuggles, of course.

"Yea, I know I'm a stud" - Samuel

First cousin picture and Taylor's first time holding Samuel

Samuel and Uncle Russ

The obligatory Thanksgiving after-lunch nap!

In the afternoon, the party shifted to be a celebration of Samuel's arrival. Melodie had a very fun shower planned!

She had great decorations and had everyone write in the Dr. Suess book "Oh the Places You'll Go!" for him. She made ah-mazing cupcakes and had fun games planned as well!

The first thing she had was a fun fall-themed quiz for us all to take. I didn't do that well, but it was hard!! :) Then, we all got our own container of Play-Doh and we were supposed to sculpt a baby. They were then judged anonomously by some super special judges (aka Trent, Russ and Chuck). There were some pretty scary looking babies in the mix, but, in our defense, it wasn't as easy as you would think!!

My baby!! Haha

We were very spoiled by everyone. Samuel got some clothes and a nice, warm winter hat, a hilarious mustache binky and, the big gift, his high chair! We have LOVED having a high chair for him and having him sit at the table with us. We received the chair at just the right time, as we were able to start using it right away! We are so thankful for the awesome gift!!

Friday after Thanksgiving was a great day of relaxing and hanging out and watching football. Of course, I took some pictures of Samuel :)

Saturday morning, we took off for Westside to spend some time with my family. It started with having lunch in Manilla with my Aunts and Uncles and some of my cousins and their kids. We got to meet baby Carson who is just about three weeks younger than Samuel.

After lunch, we stopped to see Grandma and Grandpa Jons. Grandma was sleeping and we couldn't get her to wake up to see us. So we got to see just Grandpa for a while! Grandpa really checked out Samuel for the first time and had the biggest smiles on his face. He said "Oh my" and said he was pretty nice several times! That made my heart very happy to see Grandpa hold Samuel and be so happy about it.

Saturday night we went to Vail to a party for Great Uncle Ted's 80th birthday. We got to see some of my cousins that we hadn't seen in a while and meet two new little babies that were born in August and October.

Tricia and I - 9 Days Apart with
Logan and Samuel - 19 Days Apart

Finally, on Sunday, Samuel went to church for the first time and then we brought some pizza out to Grandma and Grandpa Kock's and all hung out before it was time for us to head back home and wrap up a busy busy Thanksgiving weekend!

We are so thankful that we have so many wonderful family members to spend the holiday with and, of course, we are thankful for our first Thanksgiving with our little guy!

Thanksgiving 2014

This year we spent Thanksgiving day with family in Sioux Falls. We all gathered at Bill and Angie's house for some awesome food and lots of fun (of course). Here's a collection of pictures from the day!

Before lunch on Thursday, we all got into several different trivia games on our phones. We all sat around playing each other and helping each other with our questions and really looking like we were super antisocial and lame. But we were having a great time. We are a trivia-loving family and technology was just making it easier!

Beautiful ladies in my family!

Deep fried turkey

An army guarding the bathroom!

It wouldn't be a family get-together without a picture of Uncle Paul taking a picture of you!

The Aylward cooking crew!!! Made the amazing food!

Nap time!

Getting the shopping strategy figured out!

My amazing hubby!

Our family who was in attendance

They wanted a family picture, but their dad was sleeping, so they did what they could.

When they pretended to be asleep, he woke up. Creeepy!!

Grandkids and Grandma! (minus Trent - who took the picture)

Look who's awake now!

And this work of art made by Kenzie!! :)

It was a great Thanksgiving spent in Sioux Falls! We went out on Thursday night to do a little shopping and then my mom and I were up early on Friday to hit up some of the deals at the mall. And soon enough, it was time to head to see Trent's family and anxiously await puppy pick-up day!!! 

More on that later!! :)