Thanksgiving with Nana and Papa

Nana and Papa came up to cold Michigan just in time for Thanksgiving! Of course they brought the "ice" with them. We were just glad they made it up here safely! We had a lot of fun relaxing and playing! They got to see Ashleigh's classroom when we went to her Thanksgiving feast.

Dad bought a real sled at an antique store and the girls loved playing on that! Unfortunately we didn't have any snow so we couldn't go outside to try it out.

We also took them to IKEA because they had never been there before, and we needed to get a couple of Christmas presents. We also went to the Frozen exhibit at a local-ish mall. The girls LOVED that, even after having to wait in a line for over an hour!

Thanksgiving was a fun day full of cooking, eating, and just being with family. So refreshing! Mom and Dad kept the girls so that Matt and I could go to the Methodist church and volunteer for their community meal. The lady in charge is sweet and almost always asks Matt to greet everyone when they arrive and say a blessing for the meal. (She usually asks him when he is walking in the door to volunteer!) As a thank you, she gives us a pie made by the ladies from the church. This year, it was a blueberry pie. Delicious!
In addition to our family, we invited Jeanette and her kiddos over for our meal. Her husband had to work all day, so we insisted that they come join us! Ash and Miri were excited to play with their friends, too!

The next day, we completed our family tradition of going out to a Christmas tree farm and looking for the perfect tree. Now, back in SC, we could spend a couple of hours walking around and admiring every single tree from all angles to see which tree was perfect. But not in cold, snowy MI! We found this tree in less than  10 minutes, and we said, "Good enough!" and Matt cut it down! It was sooooo cold and a bit snowy. My parents were troopers for going out in that cold weather. (They don't have northern blood!) Although even they had to admit that it was pretty surreal to be walking through a tree farm when it is snowing. It was beautiful and quite peaceful. (Miriam especially thought it was peaceful as she slept through the entire trip! I carried her around in my arms (under a blanket) while we walked from tree to tree and she didn't even budge! She didn't wake up until the very end when we were paying for the tree and loading it up! What a booger!

 

We also had the opportunity to "celebrate Christmas" with them since we weren't heading down to SC during the Christmas season. I think Nana and Papa had a great time watching the girls open their presents!

We ventured out later that night for the Mason Light Parade. It was beautiful, but COLD! 

(Mom and Dad were there too... you could only see their eyes from all the layers they had on!) 

We had such a lovely visit with my parents! We love you! Until next time...