Kylie's First Thanksgiving

I would have to say that Kylie's first Thanksgiving was a resounding success.  I cooked a mini-Thanksgiving lunch for us.  By "mini", I mean, I didn't cook enough food for 15 people.  Our menu consisted of a small ham, turkey (because Steve prefers ham, but I thought turkey had to be included since it was Kylie's first ever Thanksgiving), macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole, cornbread, dressing, hashbrown casserole and fruit salad.

Interestingly, our good friend and neighbor, Ping, is Chinese and her sister is here visiting her all the way from China.  We have grown very close to Ping for obvious reasons and she attends LifeGroup with us on Sunday evenings.  Ping had to work Thanksgiving Day, but her sister was at home with Ping's son, Aaron.  We invited them over to join us, and they came!  Ping's sister's name is something similar to Ping, but I'll butcher it if I try to type it, but suffice it to say, lunch was interesting because she doesn't speak or understand English.  Aaron is in Chinese school, but he doesn't speak enough to help.  Thank God for Google Translate!!!

Kylie thought it was good.  :)

After lunch, we took some time to rest and then headed down to Deanne's house for Thanksgiving dinner.  It was extra special for us there because Deanne was so close to our adoption, so celebrating Kylie's first Thanksgiving at her house was pretty neat.

And even though she's new to the scene, Kylie always enjoys hanging out with her aunts, uncles and cousins.  It was another yummy meal and the company was wonderful too.  I can't wait for Christmas!

Speaking of, we are nearly all decorated for Christmas here.  We usually start the day after Thanksgiving because we never know what our weekends between now and the holidays are going to look like.  Typically, by the time Thanksgiving gets here, I'm nowhere near ready for Christmas.  I'm not in the mood and not "feelin' it".

This year, I am SO ready!  I'm excited for Kylie.  Not many people get to celebrate the first Christmas of their child at an age that they can actually ENJOY it.  Jenna was only 6 months old her first Christmas and then 18 months old her second so she really didn't get it either year.  Kylie will be just a month shy of being 2 years old at her first Christmas.  I'm not sure she'll understand about unwrapping gifts, but I bet she'll catch on pretty quickly...she sure does enjoy the tree...more on that tomorrow...