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Thursday, December 30, 2010

Thanksgiving in Kansas

For Thanksgiving this year we headed down to Kansas to visit Al's family. Our plan was to leave Wednesday evening and drive through the night, but a huge snow storm (the first of many this year) was going to be moving through so we decided to head out Tuesday night. It was nice to have the extra day to relax before Thanksgiving day and to extend our trip a little.
We picked up the girls from daycare, stopped for dinner down the road a bit, and arrived in Lenexa around 2am. The weather was uneventful so we are very glad we left when we did! The girls did amazing. They slept the entire way down and only woke up when we arrived. They do not transfer well when they are sleeping. We can never seem to move them from car to bed without them waking! We got to bed in the wee hours of the morning and begun our vacation Wednesday when we all woke up.

Taylor was able to enjoy some fun quality time with Nana, Papa and Mimi Wednesday evening. Nana found some fun, easy candies to make and Taylor did a lot of the work! Here she is meticulously laying out each pretzel.

After all the Rolos were placed and put in the oven for a few minutes, she was in charge of placing the pecan on top of each one. So careful with her work!

Next task, help Nana mix up some Pecan pies! Yum!

On Thursday (Thanksgiving), Al's sisters and their families arrived for Thanksgiving dinner. It was quite the feast as usual! Taylor was excited to play with her cousins and was so much more willing to jump in and play this time compared to our last visit. She and Baily really hit it off again.
She and Cassie were also able to open up some early Christmas presents from Aunt DeeDee. Here is Taylor in her Flapper outfit complete with heels. The "fingernails" were part of a game she had been playing.
All of the girl cousins! Baily, Cassidy and Taylor:

Friday Al took Taylor to go play at an indoor gym in Lawrence with a highschool friend and his family. Unfortunately I caught some bug and was laid out for most of the day so Cassie and I stayed back with Nana, Papa and Mimi in Lenexa. That evening we all headed out to see Al's aunt, uncle and cousins for an extended family gathering. A Tex-Mex potluck with lots of yummy food that I couldn't even touch. Thankfully by bug only lasted for that day!
Saturday was cousin Caleb's 2nd birthday party! We all heade dout to the indoor pool facility where the party was.
Caleb (aka Little Bubba) really getting into his cake!
Taylor getting into the cake action too!

Pool time! This place was really neat and had a few different places to swim and play with things to climb on and slides to go down.
Here is Uncle Bubba (Al) with Tavaris:

Cassie was even able to get into the pool and try it out. She LOVED it! I figured she would since she gets so excited in the bathtub. I included a short video below to show her "swimming" around.

Saturday night Al and I were able to have some fun adult time and hang out with a few of his high school friends again. We watched Jayhawks basketball game and then headed back to Lenexa for our last night.
We hit the road Sunday morning for the long drive home. It always takes a lot longer on the way back since everyone else is also traveling and we have to make more stops since the girls are awake most of the time. They did great again though. Some mild fussing from Cassie a couple times, but nothing to complain about!
One last picture from the weekend, the four generations:

The videos:
Cassie in the pool!


Some fun action from Cassie. She is a lot more "grabby" than we remember Taylor being. She is so curious and active. Love her tenacity!