Thanksgiving Week: Friday

On Friday morning, after packing up everything in the hotel (and forgetting to check out...oops!), we headed to Cracker Barrel to have brunch with the Gaines fam.

Evelyn with Aunt Leann

Evelyn and Grandpa

Evelyn and Grandma

Grandma, Grandpa, Evelyn, and Daddy

Dan, Evelyn, Mike, and Micah

Evelyn and Micah found the toy bins...jackpot.

This picture cracks me up...

Singing into her microphone

The one family picture we got the whole trip...we need to get better at taking family pictures!

After brunch - Dan (reluctantly) let me drive past our old house in New Pal....reluctantly because he knows it makes me sad looking at how the new owners have taken out 90% of the things we put in to make that house the nice house that it was.  We then headed to the Nyes house for our annual friend night.  I look forward to this night pretty much 364 nights a year.

We got there in time for some lunch - so Evelyn and Hank had their first date.  

(Emily and I have arranged for their marriage - it's really for the best).

More fun on their first date - playing with magnets!

 Check us out, guys!

 Love this kid...she's so spunky and fun!

Rigley and Evelyn sharing a snack

The boys were playing fruit ninja on the Kinect...so naturally I got a video of my husband's mad ninja skills.

We spent the night playing games and laughing A LOT.  Before bed, we gathered all the kiddos for a picture on the couch.

Dan thought Evelyn wanted to play fruit ninja - and used her to chop the fruit.

We're gonna need a bigger couch soon!

Do you think we can still get them to take this picture when they are 16+?

Sigh.  I miss these people terribly.  Emily and Katie are two of my closest friends in the world - and watching Evelyn play with their kids makes it even harder to be away from them.  It's always a bittersweet end to Thanksgiving week because I LOVE spending time with them...but then we leave the next day.  Boo.

Evelyn had a pretty rough night that night.  She's got 3 of her 4 molars cutting through right now and I think the excitement of the week finally got to her.  Dan and I traded off for about 2 1/2 hours holding her while she was scream-crying.  Once we got her to sleep (and ourselves in bed), Dan got kicked out for snoring. :-)  My husband is a trooper.  Did I mention I love him?

Thanksgiving Week: Thursday

Nothing says Thanksgiving like swimming, right?  Evelyn loves to swim, and we have been so busy that we haven't been able to go swimming in the hotel pool.  So we decided after breakfast to go for a quick swim before we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house. 

Cheese!

The pool has a perfect little step that she can stand on and play (and splash)

Practicing our back floats!

Squealing after Daddy throws her

Brrr - now it's cold!

After swimming we got ready and headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Dan and I have both been looking forward to watching Evelyn and Micah play with each other.

They had a blast - especially with this ball!

Learning to share...a task we aren't real good at yet!

Getting better!

Thanksgiving dinner!

 We always do our Christmas with the Gaines family while we are in Indiana for Thanksgiving - so after Thanksgiving dinner and naps, we settled down to open presents.

Evelyn was actually much happier about receiving this gift than the tears show in this picture! :-)

A second new doll!

Reading the book Aunt Kendra, Uncle Mike, and Micah got for her

She looooves this toy from Aunt Kendra, Uncle Mike, and Micah - she carries it around our house to play with it wherever she is...

Evelyn helping Grandpa open his gift from her

Finding packing peanuts for the first time!

Of course, we had to put her in the box with the peanuts...she was not enthused.

Yay - presents!

She got a third doll that has her own car seat...which Evelyn thought was her own rocking chair.  Little did she know, she was getting a real rocking chair from Grandma and Grandpa later!

Hello - Uncle Mike?

Another good Thanksgiving...Evelyn was tuckered out after a fun day of playing, running, present opening, and eating!

Thanksgiving Week: Wednesday

On Wednesday morning we went downtown to visit Dan's old colleagues at the Pacers office.  They all enjoyed seeing Evelyn (and I'm sure Dan as well...).  Dan's old Community Relations colleagues hooked Evelyn up with about 10 new books.  She loves to read, so she thought that was pretty sweet.  We then went to lunch at Scotty's - one of my favorite places to eat in Indiana - it was (as always) delicious.  After lunch it was time for naps to rest up for an evening of dinner with friends and a basketball game.  Every year on the night before Thanksgiving, Dan's brother has a game (he coaches).  Some good friends of ours live in the same town that the game is always held, so we always have dinner with them before the game.  Once again, I did not get any pictures of our time at Dave & Jenni's - I fail at that!  They joined us at Mike's game as well, so that was fun!

Evelyn loved the game.  She was especially enamored with the pep band - she loved dancing and clapping as they played.  She and her cousin, Micah, got to run around, play with the basketballs, climb up the bleachers - pretty much a toddlers dream. 

Evelyn also drew some masterpieces during a good chunk of the game.  She loves drawing!

She looked up every once and a while to see what was going on!

And clapped when the crowd cheered

Grandma and Grandpa Gaines with Micah and Evelyn

After the game, Kendra (my sister-in-law) and I wanted to get a picture of Evelyn and Micah on the players seats.  We had the perfect plan of Kendra taking the picture while I made sure the kids didn't try to lunge off the seats.  It was brilliant until Evelyn decided to try and rock the chair - then slipped right through the hole in the back and conked her head on the gym floor.  I'm expecting my Mom of the Year Award in the mail any day.

But look how cute they are!

After the tears, I headed back to the hotel and left Dan to play with his brother and Dave.  They had a late (second) dinner, then Mike and Dan went to see Mike & Kendra's new house in Fishers (they close this month!).  He snuck in around 1am that night - Evelyn and I barely noticed! :-)

Thanksgiving Week: Tuesday

On Tuesday morning, we had a playdate with the Nyes and Browns...or as we like to call it for the Nyes (who are homeschooled), "PE with Dr. Gaines".  We met at the church that Dan and I used to attend because they have a great play place for kids (think McDonalds play place - only cooler).  We had to corral all of the kiddos into a classroom for a while because the MOPS group was meeting in the play place - but we didn't care.  We got to catch up and watch our kids play together.  I loved every minute of it!

Rigley (1 year), Evelyn (18 months), and Henry Jay (15 months) playing

Henry's not afraid to drink out of a flowery pink sippy cup (such is the life of a little boy with 3 older sisters!)

Rigley cheesing it up!

Someone got a hold of Mommy's coffee cup...

Sophie and Evelyn

Tucker, Charlotte, and Paislee taking a picture of themselves

Evelyn LOVED the play place!  I loved letting her roam around knowing she couldn't get into too much trouble (and knowing that all of the Nye and Brown kids were looking out for her too!)

After the play place, we had lunch with Grandma and Grandpa - then headed back to the hotel for naps.  We had dinner plans with one of Dan's good friend's family.  We try to get together with them every time we are back, and they have a little girl who is about 2 weeks older than Evelyn.  It was fun watching the two of them together!

Alexis and Evelyn going for a cruise

Shooting hoops with Daddy on Tyler & Owen's hoop

Evelyn liked terrorizing Mackey
(sad news:  Mackey died just a few days after we were there...)

Alexis and Evelyn playing with their gadgets!

Dan and Evelyn with Chad and Alexis

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for a bath and bedtime.  After bedtime, Daddy snuck out to go watch a movie with his friends Josh & Jay...and old time guys night - only the girls didn't get together at the same time :-(...not sure how they got a guys night, but we didn't get a girls night!