Let the Holidays Begin!

I hope you all had a fabulous Turkey Day! I know I did! This was the first year I was not with my family (yup, the first one ever!) so not only was I missing them, but I also was going to attempt to roast my own birdie and have Thanksgiving at our house with Jon's family.

Here is Mr. Turkey as it went in the oven. I used this website and followed their directions - it turned out SO GOOD!!
Jon being silly and about ready to slice into our perfectly roasted turkey.
Feast!! Jon, Trent, Heather, Mike, "Oma" Joanne and the back of Violet.
Speaking of Violet, the poor thing spiked a 103 fever the afternoon before and it didn't let up until Friday. I felt so bad! She wasn't in the mood to do much of anything but she did eat a plate of mashed potatoes for her Thanksgiving dinner. We didn't convince her until the next day to try Uncle Trent's famous sweet potatoes - then she decided she loved them (we all did - there was almost a pound of brown sugar in them! YUM!)
We went out to eat a LOT which was so great! My stomach is still a little iffy so it was really nice to have someone else cook for me :) Here are Jon, Heather, Trent and Joanne out for lunch on Friday.

Violet getting some snuggles from Daddy.Then we went out for my birthday on Sunday night to my new favorite Mexican restaurant in Denver. SOO yummy!
Friday night we had Christmas with Joanne and Violet got some great stuff! Here she is modeling her Dutch Wooden Shoe slippers. She LOVES them!

She quickly figured out that these wrapped up presents had FUN STUFF in them. She went from being a nice little elf delivering the gifts to their recipient to a little elf devil who wanted to keep and open them all for herself. Ah, to be almost 2 again. Luckily most of the gifts were for her :)
She got some great building blocks from her Oma. She mostly likes to knock down whatever castle me or Jon builds for her. Look how much fun she had riding the carousel! It could be the bright lights, loud music, or the guy standing behind her who looks like a baby-napper, not her daddy!
We also went to visit Violet's 2nd cousin Tobin. He is so cute and they play so good together! Here they are sharing a bowl of blueberries.