A fun Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year with a visit from Grammy and Kelly. Tofurky and other yummy dishes were enjoyed by all.

And, of course, the kids were very excited to see Grammy and Kelly again. They were impressed by Brielle's new vocabulary and maturity...and challenged (in a fun way) by her amazing, non-stop energy.

Grammy and Kelly were amazed to see how much Ronan has grown. He's really showing his personality now. He can roll over and laugh and is very close to sitting up.

A great smile for Mommy...

We've adopted a tradition of starting to set up for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, which was a lot of fun. Daddy put on Christmas music while Brielle helped to decorate the tree. She started by insisting that the tree needed a big star on top. Daddy helped her put it on.

Nice job!

Brielle took charge of putting the decorations on the tree. Like last year, almost all of the ornaments are at the bottom of the tree for this reason. From her perspective, it looks just perfect. We think it looks great too.

Ronan wasn't quite ready to participate this year, but he enjoyed sleeping in Grammy's arms.

Recently, Brielle helped Ronan create a hand print ornament.

During Grammy and Kelly's visit, we gave Ronan his first taste of real food. Grammy's an expert at introducing her grandchildren to solid foods.

Big sister Brielle wanted to help out too. And since that first feeding, she's asked if she could help feed Ronan every time we do it. She watched Grammy carefully and does a great job with holding the spoon in his mouth and scooping the fallen food off of his lips and putting it back into his mouth. It's really impressive and sweet.

Last Christmas Brielle became enthralled with a Snoopy Christmas display at a neighbor's house. For months after last Christmas she often asked me where Snoopy went when we passed that house. I told her that Snoopy would be back at Christmas. Luckily, he did appear again this year, to her delight. Plus Daddy took Brielle to the store to get outdoor decorations and they picked out our very own Snoopy for our yard.