The Not-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

Today we had Thanksgiving dinner with Rod's family. A couple months ago, when when we all started talking about plans for the actual Thanksgiving, it looked like almost no one was available to get together - one sister had to work, another was planning to go see her husband's family, another was planning a vacation, etc. We decided to get together on a different day when we could all make it, and today was that day.

I wanted Eloise to have something cute to wear, but it had to be pants. We have a few cute dresses, but Eloise hates them because dresses are not good for crawling. She can't stand anything that holds her back! I sent Rod to the mall with instructions to buy a slightly dressy outfit involving pants, and he came back with this particular ensemble. I was very impressed!



Michaela has had short hair her whole life, but she's decided that she watns to grow it out, and now that it is getting longer, she's been asking me to do different things with it. Here's how it looked today. She LOVES this hairstyle.



Rod has four siblings, and all of them have kids. There are 12 in all, ranging in age from 20 all the way down to 7 months. You might remember Madelyn, the youngest (and Eloise's only LITTLE cousin!), from this post. Madelyn is a little more than 7 months and Eloise is almost 9 months. The biggest difference in those ages is mobility, and Eloise kept trying to tackle poor Maddie.



And then she tried to pick her nose.



We decided that since all 12 kids were there, we should take the opportunity to get a picture, but this is obviously easier said than done. This was the best of the lot. Eloise started in a good mood, but was crying by the end. I think it was just too many people pointing cameras at the group and yelling, "smile, everybody!"