Amazing Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was fantastic-filled with food, family, fun and one annoying dog named Jim Bob (more on that in a minute). I'm home now after nearly a week in my home town of Salem, Mo. The week went by in a blur, but I'll try to capture some of the highlights.

On Tuesday night, we decided to have family movie night. To preface this story, I must tell you that Salem does not have a movie theater (it's THAT small). So, in order to have said family movie night, we had to drive to the next town over, Rolla (about 30 miles away). My parents never go to the movies, so it was a nice treat to have them come along. The plan was for my brother and I to see New Moon and my parents were going to see The Blind Side. Well, turns out, there was only 1 ticket for New Moon left, so all four of us saw The Blind Side. Let me just say, I pretty much cried the whole time. I'm a sucker for a feel good movie. It actually was really good, I recommend it! I ended up seeing New Moon later in the week and liked it too....although I feel dirty thinking that 17 year old werewolf is hot...........

On Wednesday, we waited anxiously all day for my sis, brother-in-law and niece to arrive...they got in around 10pm, baby Kendall was fast asleep, but just seeing her was enough. My brother, who hadn't seen her since her baptism in July said "she's huge!". :)

Thanksgiving Day started early. We were all up early to see the baby and play with her (even my brother who is never up before 11am if he can at all help it). She is SO freakin cute it's almost unfair to other babies out there. Coupled with a sweet personality and other kids just don't have a chance. We left Grandma and Grandpa Davidson to babysit, and my brother, sister, brother-in-law and myself went to town to.......run a 5k. Yes, sounds insane, I know. My parents church hosted the 1st Annual Turkey Trot, so knowing running 3.12 miles would ease our guilt from stuffing our faces, we decided to go. Now, I do a 5k on the treadmill 3-4 days a week, so endurance-wise, this thing should have been no problem, right? Wrong. This 5k SUCKED. It was freezing for one thing. And very windy. And mostly uphill. I think at one point I threatened to cry. My amazing brother, however, wouldn't let me quit and even though we came in dead last, we finished it. After that, the eating began.

We mostly spent time with Kendall (pics below), and soaked up the time we had with her and my sis and bro-in-law. On Friday, my sis, bro-in-law and Kendall had to leave, but as they were leaving, my Aunt Mary and cousin Rachel arrived. Sad to see the first three go, we were also happy to see my aunt and cousin. Yesterday, my Aunt Paula also came down. We hung out with the dogs a lot, who LOVED the attention. Although we had a somewhat unwelcome guest for most of the week....the neighbor's dog Jim Bob. Seems Jim Bob likes my parents house, I'm guessing so he can play with my parents dogs, Stubby and Hank, although I don't know why. Stubby hates him and pretty much ignores him and Hank, well, Hank likes him a little too much.....uhm, yea, seems Hank the Tank thinks humping poor Jim Bob is an acceptable thing to do...over, and over, and over again. I'm not sure what the doggie child rape laws are, but Jim Bob is just a puppy........ewwwwww. We went "shopping"...(in Salem, "shopping" means these weird little craft-like stores "downtown" and....Wal-Mart), and then just kinda hung out talking and laughing. I can be doing absolutely nothing at all, but as long as it's with my family, I don't mind. I love them all so much!

Oh, oh, OH! I almost forgot to tell you about the part where my brother nearly got stampeded by a herd of cows! True story. So, all of us decided to take a walk (down the county road and back is two miles...gotta work off all the crap we'd eaten!), and by all of us, I mean my family and the dogs (including the neighbor dog, Jim Bob and my Aunt Mary's dog, Sophia). The dogs (particularly my parents two morons) like to run off in the fields, chasing things and whatnot, and little miss Stubby ran into a giant brush pile and didn't come out. Thinking she may be stuck or hurt, my brother hopped the barbed wire fence and went to check on her. Several minutes went by, we stood on the road waiting to see if her dumb ass was gonna appear. When suddenly we all begin yelling at once "Tim, the cows are coming!". Seems the cows did not like this human stranger being in their field and they were coming after my brother! Once he figured out what we were yelling (and saw the cows for himself), he began running toward the fence. In his rush for safety, he apparently got his shirt stuck on the fence, and also got stabbed by the barbed wire, leaving quite the gash in his leg (complete with a blood soaked sock...awesome). We got him home, and debated going to the ER for a tetanus shot, but then decided that if his leg was still attached in the morning, then he'd probably be fine (and he is). This only happens in the country, folks.

I'm back at home in the STL now which sucks, but I looked at the calendar and it's only 20 more days until I see my family again. That's what will give me the energy to get up tomorrow and face another day at work. Enjoy the pics below, you know I can't help but brag on that niece of mine!

Look how big she's gotten! She is such a big girl now. She hasn't started crawling yet, but she can roll around the room like no one's business. While in Salem, she learned how to wave, and particularly liked to wave at her Grandpa Davidson. I think her First Thanksgiving was a good one, and I'm so happy we could be there to share it with her.Here's Kendall doing what naughty babies do best, messing with the Christmas tree.......and playing with her toys.This is my dad, Kendall's grandpa, teaching her how to do sit ups. I've never seen my father be so sappy before. But if Kendall's around, forget about it. He's a sucker for that baby girl!Here's my beautiful sis and her beautiful baby.

Aunt Kerri with the munchkin. My head looks weird, but the kid looks cute...Love this pic of Kendall and her daddy and Uncle Tim. She's got them wrapped around her chubby little fingers.Kendall playing with the stuffed moose I gave her. We named him Marty.

Family pic time! This is me, my sister Kristy and my mom with baby Kendall.

The boys turn! Here's my brother Tim, brother-in-law Jon and my daddy with Miss Kendall.The WAY adorable Baumgart family.She loves to stand and is really strong! We think she may just skip crawling and go right on into walking....PARTY PIC! Never mind that this was taken first thing in the morning and Aunt Kerri looks like a hot mess.....Look at those stunning blue eyes!Kendall LOVED watching the dogs. She would belly laugh at their antics. They are pretty funny...........