a thankful thanksgiving

bella, daddy, mommy, max, marni & pepere
daddy, mommy & bella with daddy's family
two of mommy's most favorite people!!

marni lovin' on bella
poppa, daddy, jim & uncle johnny frying the turkey
the flag football players~ go team!!
the cutest cheerleader enjoying the grassy field

we had a wonderful thanksgiving this year... most of all because we have SO much to be grateful for, especially our sweet baby girl, bella. in addition, we felt so blessed to have all our family together. marni & pepere drove in from NWA and then we all headed over to east cobb... we started with a game of flag football at lassiter high school... then we headed over to teenie & poppa's and began the feasting! we had lots to drink and wonderful appetizers... and lots of friends & family~ jonathan & elizabeth, todd, staci, christian, noah & emerson, jane & jim, laura, bert & alice (bert's mom), marni, pepere, teenie & poppa all joined us for the day... we began feasting around 3:30pm and the food was FABULOUS... lots of wonderful things, including fried turkey, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, corn pudding, deviled eggs, bacon wrapped green beans, garlic mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, pumpkin pie, apple pie and chocolate chip pecan pie... all i can say is "yum, yum, yum!!" bella even tried some garlic mashed potatoes (that her daddy made) and couldn't get enough... at 9 mths she is already showing her love for one of italian food's greatest ingredients! we are so thankful for such a wonderful family and such great memories... happy first thanksgiving, sweet bella bean!! we love you!

turkey triathlon

some of our neighbors
my first winter hat
LOVE the animal print

our family hosted our neighborhood's pre-thanksgiving turkey triathlon... we had over 20 people come and lots of kids... jason, jeremy & jon were in charge of the turkey frying~ i had never had fried turkey~ it was FABULOUS~ very moist, i highly recommend it... so it seemed a great time was had by all!

pumpkin carving

the thursday before halloween, teenie & poppa, along with cousin noah- who came dressed up in his ninja costume- came over to eat chili and carve pumpkins. daddy was very creative, in that he carved bella's pumpkin with 2 bottom teeth and add a bow~ just like our little punkin' (see the picture at our header). teenie & poppa were very helpful too! after carving, we shot off a few fireworks in the backyard and then lit our jack-o-lanterns... it was a lot of fun!

happy halloween 2008

  me with dylan & bella

chris, aubrey, ariel, bella, me & jason                                           

daddy & mommy with their sweet giraffe                                             
notice the bow in our giraffe's hair!                                             
bella & aubrey chillaxin' on our porch swing                                            

so for halloween bella was a giraffe~ and i must say she was the cutest giraffe ever!! even though she normally doesn't like having things on her head she was fine with the costume being on the whole night~ she was the most cooperative giraffe ever... and now that she is crawling she even moved around and made some noises that seemed to resemble those of a giraffe : ) we had a porch crawl with our neighbors and our home was one of the stops... our friends chris & ariel & their daughter, aubrey, joined us for a bit too. it was lots of fun.