The Franklin Family: Thankful for Thanksgiving

This week we celebrated Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is always such a fun time to get together with family. We headed over to Alabama on Tuesday afternoon after Caroline's Thanksgiving program. My sister, Amy, and her daughter, Margaret Clay, were already at my parents house when we got there, so the girls took off full speed! Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of year because it is more of a relaxing holiday to spend with family. I love Christmas, but it always seems so rushed and stressful trying to make sure Santa gets the presents right, and mom and dad give the right presents, and don't tell the kids that they gave them something that Santa actually gave. It's just stressful at times. Thanksgiving is great because there is nothing to do but be thankful and eat. Both of which require very little physical activity :-)

Wednesday, we just hung around the house and let the girls play. There were gator rides, Mickey watching, adventures, cooking, tasting, and eating. They really enjoying being together and are content to just be together. On Thursday, we always go out to my aunt and uncle's house to eat. The girls got to eat at the princess table, while Andrew joined us at the adult table. After lunch, we took our usual seats around the TV to watch the Lions play and maybe close our eyes for just a few minutes....until someone, age 5 or less, jumped on top of us :-) Later that afternoon, the boys got out the guns and the skeet shooter and took a little bit of target practice before the big quail hunt the following days. (I shot a little, went 3 for 4 which I was pretty happy with :-) Friday morning, the boys went quail hunting, while us women folk entertained the children :-) After nap time, we celebrated Caroline's birthday. Since her birthday is before Christmas, my family always has a party for her after Thanksgiving. The girls had so much fun! My mom got them all fancy outfits to wear for the party and they LOVED it! Caroline got so many great things! She got a coin purse from her great-grandmother (and some money to go with it :-), a Princess CD player from Trent, Amy, and Margaret Clay, a set of purple golf clubs from Papa, glitter nail polish, and a ton of Strawberry Shortcake pieces! She was so super excited!!! Since we have been home, she has been hidden in her room listening to VeggieTales and playing Strawberry Shortcake! Saturday was a pretty laid back day. (As if the others weren't :-) We took the annual Christmas picture of the grandkids for my parents and the kids rode with Papa on the four-wheeler. We watched football and had a wonderful lunch of venison (provided by Trent) and quail (killed by the boys). After we got the kids down, we watched a game that is rather important at our house, Alabama vs. Auburn. We were only able to stay a little while because we had to head back that afternoon.