Monday, November 26, 2007

Thanksgiving, Football (backyard and otherwise!), Birthdays, and "Christmas is Coming Soon"...

But before we get to the Photo Overload that is coming up, join with me in wishing a HUGE HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my wonderful husband, Gary!!!!!!!! He is 42 today (which means I can say for the rest of the year--at least until August--that he is three years older than me! lol). Gary is a WONDERFUL husband and an INCREDIBLE father and he deserves the best day ever!!!! So give him a big shout-out right here in my comments section, and then go to his blog right HERE and wish him a Happy Birthday there too!!

Thank you for that!!!

Now...how about some pictures of the event-packed last four days? We did Thanksgiving at Gary's grandmothers' house, at my parents' house, celebrated Gary's birthday with both sets of relatives, did some Christmas activities at church, and just generally ate MORE food than is pretty much humanly possible! (And, oh yeah, we cheered heartily for Alabama only to see them lose in the Iron Bowl! Yuck!).

So here are some of my favorite pics from our Thanksgiving celebrations (we took a TON more pictures than this, so be glad this is all I'm sharing with you all!)

First off was a visit to Gary's Gan Gan's house. We had wonderful food (look at that big ole plate full! yumm!!) and some great time with cousins and parents and grandparents. Nothing better than that!





At my Mom and Dad's, we enjoyed more food and time with family. But we also spent some quality time outdoors. It was a gorgeous day and the trees were still pretty and colorful. A good time for family photos and some backyard football!











It also was quite chilly during a lot of the weekend, so we dug out the logs for the first time this season. And with a fire raging, we enjoyed Scrabble and Chess (sorry, no pics of it!).


We also enjoyed an Iron Bowl party together with the girls' friends. (Well, I use the word "enjoy" loosely, since Bama lost!! ugh!!! But...we did have fun eating some more, and getting all decked out in our Bama attire!)



We celebrated Gary's birthday two times already. Yesterday was spent at our house with Gary's family. Look at that disaster of a cake I made!! (But it tasted GOOD!! Homemade chocolate sour cream frosting!!)


And now we are getting ready for Christmas! We had our annual Family Christmas Tree Decorating at church last night. It included singing Christmas carols and songs--including "The Twelve Days of Christmas" complete with motions (provided by what I call the "Three Blondes a Singin').

And our Christmon trees appeared in our sanctuary. I love them!

I hope all of you had a WONDERFULLY BLESSED Thanksgiving holiday!! I have missed coming by your blogs, but have been very busy. I am going to spend some time today trying to catch up, though (in between washing the massive amounts of clothes that have piled up over the long vacation, and working on three articles due by the end of the week! lol)

Love you all, and see you soon!!!

15 comments:

Monogram Queen said...

Happy Happy Birthday Gary! I will leave him a message on his blog as well. Ha finally another blogger who is (a whole year) older than I! *grin*
Ummm I just want to lick my computer screen - that plate looks so good! Your family is so happy and fun Cheryl. You are truly blessed!

Linda said...

Oh C it looks like you had such a fabulous time. I miss having family around. Mine is all gone and I totally miss that. thanksgiving my Oldest DD didn't even come up to spend with us, she was under the weather and having bf problems too. But we still had the 3 of us and a beautiful day. Christmas is My MIL me both kids, hubby and all the furbabies, and our friends. I love the holidays.

Happy Birthday Gary...don't worry, my hubby is three years younger than me (until January) then it's only 2.5 hehehehe. Have a great one.

Anonymous said...

I love all of these pictures, Cheryl. We had a really nice holiday too. I can't believe Christmas is almost here!

Vee said...

so glad you had a great Thanksgiving!! love your dinner, looked alot like mine :)
xo

Katrin said...

Looks like you had an awesome weekend! I love the picture of you all in the forest, it is so pretty. I wish our fall had lasted a little longer, but, to tell you the truth, the snow here is helping a lot to get into the Christmas mood.
I also wished Gary Happy Birthday - but as requested, I will do it here again: HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARY!!!
P.S.: The cake looks wonderful. Perfection always comes with little flaws.

Dawn Bibbs said...

Happy Birthday again, Gary!!!

Love, love, love all the pictures. Especially your family picture.

Looks like you guys had a great time and oh my goodness, the food!!! Dontcha just love Thanksgiving dinners?? Yum, YUM!!!

Cheryl Wray said...

Patticake--Ha ha!! Don't lick the computer screen! Doesn't really sound too healthy! Yes, I AM blessed!!

Linda--Oh, I'm sad for you that your oldest wasn't with you. But it sounds like it was still a great day!!!

Gin--I know!! Christmas is just around the corner!

Vee--We ate WAY TOO much food!!! I guess that's what Thanksgiving is all about! :-)

Katrin--Ooh, I'm so jealous of your snow!! We just about never get it here and it makes us very sad! My FIL said the same thing about my cake. He said the pretty ones usually don't taste as good as the "flawed" ones! lol

Dawn--Yes!! There is NOTHING like Thanksgiving dinners. It was SO good!!!!

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday Gary!!!!!

Adrienne said...

Happy Birthday Gary!! Glad you had a good weekend!

Kingcover said...

Can McK not afford a FULL pair of jeans??? :-P
And when you said that it got quite chilly does that mean that it actually dropped below 80F in your neck of the woods?!?! Shock and horror. How in all earth did you survive those extremes of coldness!!! Hehe :-)

Wendy said...

Glad you all had a great holiday. That food looked Yummy!!! Happy Birthday Gary!!. I hit the big 4-0 in 6 more days. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet=( So sad that Bama lost. Still can't believe it.....Oh well, there's always next year!!

Unknown said...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARY!!!

Your Thanksgiving plate looked just like mine! LOL YUMMY!

AWESOME picture! I really like the outdoor family pictures! They turned out fantastic!

Your poor cake had me cracking up! But, it tasted good, so that is all that really matters. The frosting you made sounds DELISH!

Adriann said...

Happy Birthday Gary!

Cheryl-- you know I thought about you this weekend with the Alabama loss. I heard that they played dirty... LOL! Sorry about the loss.

And you are so going to have to scrap the family pic of all of you guys outside. It's beautiful!

Enjoy the week!

Lynilu said...

Happy Birthday, Gary!!

Sounds ... and looks ... like you guys had a terrific weekend!

So much to be thankful for!!

Cheryl Wray said...

Heather--Thanks for the bday wishes for Gary!

Adrienne--The weekend was nice, but boy am I glad to have things calm down a bit!

King--Hee hee!!! I get onto her allthe time about wearing those holy jeans, but they're her favorite!! LOL And it DID get chilly. Like down to 45 degrees!!

Wendy--The Big 4-0, huh? I hope you have a GREAT birthday!!! Age is just a state of mind, you know.

Kathy--It really was yummy, even though it was ugly!! Yes, I also really like those outdoor pictures.I will put them in frames or in scrapbooks for sure!

Adriann--I'm still sad about losing the game. It stunk!!!

Lynilu--Thanks for Gary's wishes!! Yes, it was a good weekend!!