Thanksgiving Time with Ellie

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving - we sure did!  Jill, Eric, and baby Elli came to visit us and we had such a good time!  (I should mention quickly that my nerve block has worked great and Evie helped me out a little bit in the kitchen while I got some of my Thanksgiving dishes prepared while also recovering from the block.)

Thanksgiving Day, I took Evie to Granna's house in the morning so she could go with Granna to church for the Thanksgiving lunch while Grannadaddy and I went to a worship service at Grace-St. Lukes.  When we got to our church for lunch I found Evie in the kitchen with Mrs. Jane, helping to slice up some pumpkin bread.  It tickles me that she is ready to be involved in church kitchen life.

We ate lunch at the church and then we came home to rest before going to dinner at my cousin Daniel's house with all of mom's side of the family.  During that meal, Jill and Eric and Ellie arrived and we had a great time watching Ellie play with all of the cousins.  Daniel and Ginny have 4 girls and the youngest was so excited that a baby was going to come.  The all gathered in a gaggle on the floor "helping" Ellie play with some toys.

I have to share this video of the chocolate turkey idea we had...  Seth and I took Matt to Dinstuhl's which is a local chocolaterie chain to and while we were shopping, I noticed that they had enormous chocolate turkeys.  I jokingly said we should get one for Thanksgiving and Seth said, seriously, "Yeah we should."  I said, "You're kidding," and he said, "Think about how fun it would be to watch all the Whitehorn kids smash it open."  And so, the chocolate turkey came home with us.  However, after we bought it, the shop owner told us it had to be stored at below 70 degrees, which our house is not because I hate to be cold, so we imposed on Granna and Grannadaddy to keep it for us for about 10 days until Thanksgiving.  So here's the video of the kids smashing the turkey, and the reason that Uncle Charlie now calls Evie the Blunt Force Gobbler.

Friday we had lunch with dad's side of the family at Kathy's house.  Somehow I managed to only get a picture of the food, which was delicious, but I wish I'd gotten pictures of everybody.  Jill, Eric, and Ellie came, and my cousin Olivia and Ali and the boys were there, along with Rickie's brother Ron and our friend Matt, and my parents of course, so it was quite a lot of people!

Friday evening, Evie and I had tickets to see How the Grinch Stole Christmas at the Orpheum so we had dinner downtown and enjoyed the show.

Saturday we dragged Jill and Eric to the gaudiest thing we could think of in Memphis (second to Graceland which was prohibitively expensive): The Bass Pro Shop Pyramid.  If it hadn't been raining, I would have suggested the zoo because Ellie would have enjoyed it, but since it was gross outside, we figured Bass Pro was the closest combination to animals and tackiness that we were going to find.  And it delivered.  And there were so many people there!  Evie, Seth, Jill, and Matt took a try at shooting targets, which Eric and I found highly amusing.

Evie got into a Christmased 4 wheeler.

And we watched the guy feeding the fish and wondered why in the world he had to get into the tank in order to clean the top and sprinkle some food into it.

On our way out, a lady and her husband were walking in with a couple of parrots on their shoulders (like you do at Bass Pro, apparently) and let Evie hold one of them.

That evening, Granna, Evie and I kept Ellie while the rest of the crew went to the dog track which is scheduled to close at the end of the year, so they had to get their kicks in while it was still available.  Evie was a huge comfort to Ellie and provided lots of entertainment by dancing for her and reading to her, and acting as a chair.

Again, Evie would have made a great big sister.

Sunday, Jill, Evie, and I went to see Nut Remix which is a production by another ballet studio that incorporates hip hop, tap, and African dancing in addition to the typical Nutcracker fare.  We had a good time on a girls' outing.  

We had some dinner when we got back home and then had to say our goodbyes to Jill, Eric, and Ellie.  Evie was very upset this morning when it was time to go back to school, and in part she blamed missing Ellie for her sadness.