Thanksgiving Part 2

On Thursday we headed up to Boiling Springs, NC to celebrate Thanksgiving with Paul's mom's extended family. This year my parents and grandmother were able to join us! The Hedrick clan is always a lot of fun and it's even more fun now that we have the girls. The girls won't have cousins close to their age so I really love that they have SO MANY second cousins to play with...and so many of them are girls! This time Emma, Mary Jane, and Laura Ann were there and Emmie had the time of her life playing with them. I think the only time I saw Emmie in the main room while we were there was when she was eating. The rest of the time she was in the gym running around with the girls. The girls are so helpful to. They took Emmie to wash her hands before lunch and took her to the bathroom when she needed to go potty...I was tempted to bring them all back to Columbia with me...haha!

Mary Jane and Emmie

Ellie had a great time roaming around. She about walked her little legs off! KJ and Cody (second cousins) were playing basketball which just fascinated Ellie and they were so sweet to take the time to find her small ball to play with and show her how to shoot. She was so pleased.

Ellie playing basketball with the big boys :)

Mark coaching Ellie

After lunch I got in the car to head back to Columbia to work on Friday and the girls and Paul and Franklin were staying with Suzy and Clyde Friday night before coming back to Columbia. Fortunately, as I was headed out of town I listened to my voice mail and they wanted to put me on call  for work and there were going to be others on call and I would be the last one called in so I thought about it for a minute and then turned around and headed back to be with my family!
Friday morning Emmie woke up wanting to know where her friends were and when they were coming over. She didn't have to wait long as the girls and their parents came over for breakfast. There were 10 adults and 5 little girls there (and 1 puppy who was willing to eat anything that fell his way!) and it was wild and fun! I think I heard someone say they cooked 30 eggs and we ate every last one!



This is how you cook eggs for 15 people! (Sorry about the picture quality...I had left my camera in the car overnight so it was all fogged up when I brought it in.)

The girls played for a bit after breakfast and then we went outside and played in the leaves and everyone got into the fun!

Running to jump in the leaves!

Ellie was not so sure about the leaves!

Paul got Mary Jane with a big pile of leaves!



Mary Jane and Laura Ann attacking Paul!



Emmie took a break to rock.

Laura Ann, Mary Jane, Emmie, Emma, Ellie

Love this candid shot!

Love attack! (There's a Paul somewhere under that pile!)

Emmie and me...love this picture!

Love this picture of the 4 of us!

When I was growing up we always went to Atlanta to my Granny and Grandaddy's house for Thanksgiving and in they had a stone wall in their backyard that dropped off to a steep downhill incline and my cousins and I used to pile up the leaves and jump off the wall into the leaves. Watching my girls remined me of the fun times I had growing up and I just love that they're able to make these memories.
After the leaf fun we took the girls over to Emma and Mary Jane's house so that we could meet their chickens and they let Emmie pick the eggs AND we got to bring them home with us...they were so good..fresh is always better! Emmie was not so sure about the chickens but eventually warmed up enough to let Paul put her down. Ellie, my child with no fear, was delighted with the chickens! She wanted to pet them and tried to feed them but couldn't figure out how to hold the feed in her hand correctly.

Checking out the chickens.

Egg!

Ellie petting the chicken.

Ellie loved watching Emma feed the chickens.

Emmie helping hold Paul's hand while he fed the chickens.

After some fun playtime we headed back to Suzy and Clyde's where Mammy was waiting to have lunch with us. After lunch (where Ellie fought like crazy to keep her eyes peeled open) we packed up the car and headed home. The girls were asleep within 5 minutes of leaving and they were still pretty glazed over when we got home. We had such a good time and I'm so thankful I was able to be off work so I could make these memories with Paul and the girls!