Giving Thanks for Family

This year, we had much to be thankful for.  The Powells, Hensleys, Michels, and Perkins' families all gathered in Kansas City to welcome our newest addition:

Kinley Josephine Perkins, born 11/20/2011

Ledger was very excited to meet his newest little cousin and was surprisingly gentle and sweet with her.  He kept calling her "cute" and wanted to give her kisses.  We were very proud of how well he did with the little baby.  Kinley is a very sweet baby, but she has her sleeping schedule a little flipped around.  During the days, she slept like a champ in someone's arms, but at night she kept poor Mommy and Daddy awake a lot.  Everyone tried to pitch in a little bit to allow Emily and Josh to get a little bit of rest, but being a new parent is hard.

All of those newborn parenting skills came right back...

Ledger wasn't so sure about "sharing" his Uncle Josh.  But luckily Josh has plenty of room on his lap for two.

 

Josh's parents, Mary Lynn and Don, kindly offered to make Thanksgiving dinner for all of the visitors.  Sometimes combining families for holiday traditions can create an awkward scenario -- but we all had a great time.  Football, family, and food -- who could ask for more?!

Look at Kinley's adorable little black Thanksgiving dress!

Chris and I maintained our Thanksgiving tradition by going out and braving the crowds of people for Black Friday shopping.  This year the sales started at 10pm Thanksgiving night, so we were actually finished with all of our shopping by about 12:30 a.m.  The Olathe Walmart was packed, but it was a very similar shopping experience to what we have had in the past in Broken Arrow.

On Saturday, we got up early to go swimming at BoomMa and BoomPa's hotel pool.  Ledger had a great time splashing with BoomPa in the pool!  Superstitious BoomPa wouldn't take off his OU socks to swim because it was a Sooner gameday -- so he swam in his socks.  :)  Millie took some cute pictures -- hopefully I can steal them to add to this blog later.

In the afternoon, Oma and Doodah went to Topeka to watch Josh coach the Olathe South Falcons in the 6A football state championship.  The rest of us watched it on TV at home.  It was a very exciting game and came down to a last minute score for the Falcons to WIN their first football state championship in school history.  It was awesome!  We are very proud of Uncle Josh and the Falcons.  

Unfortunately, Emily was feeling particularly bad on Saturday.  BoomMa and BoomPa took care of Kinley and I tried to take care of Emily.  Poor Mommy.  After some home ministrations, she finally started to feel better in the evening.

We left KC early Sunday morning to try to get home and get a little rest before we had to head back to the "real world" next week.  We had a pretty restful day at home and got out some more Christmas decorations in the evening.  Ledger is a big helper and helped us decorate the tree!  With the extra lights and red berries (that Ledger insisted we put on the tree this year) I think our tree is just beautiful.