The rest of Thanksgiving weekend

It was a great weekend.

On Friday, we left my in-laws mid-morning (after picking our Secret Santa names) to drive home. Later on in the afternoon, we went to my mom's cousin's house for an annual family party. We are lucky that this particular cousin lives about a mile away from my house :)

My immediate family

After the party, Jamie and I went home and put Brenna to bed. A couple of hours later, our friends Jackie, Mike, Mark and Andrea came over. It was so much fun to see them. Jackie and Mike live around the corner, so I see them all the time, but I rarely get to see Mark and his wife. I was really good friends with Mark growing up, and he moved to Brooklyn when we graduated from college. (He is now an important editor and Andrea is a lawyer, so I don't think they are moving back here any time soon.) But, I love seeing them when they are in town!

Saturday was a relaxing day. I packed away all of Brenna's 3-6 month clothes and tried to figure out what 0-3 and 3-6 month stuff I could put aside for Kara's baby boy who will be born in less than two months! With all the pink and flowers, I have to say, there wasn't much.

Saturday evening we attended a very special party - my cousin Jimmy's Homecoming (from Iraq) Party at my aunt and uncle's house. It was a ton of fun, and we went from 7:15 until almost 11... and Brenna stayed up the entire time. We probably ruined her schedule for weeks to come, but it was worth it. Here are some pictures from Jimmy's party:

I heard it was even more fun after we left. There were probably 70-80 guests, and those that stayed late night actually began dancing in the basement (my cousins have a game room set up in their basement with a jukebox). Jimmy and his girlfriend Katie danced to My Boyfriend's Back, which my mom said was really cute. My parents didn't get home until after 2 in the morning.

Today we woke up early (despite Brenna's late bedtime) and we went to a Baptism for our friend's baby boy, Joseph. It was the first time we saw the seven-week-old, and he was too cute.

A bunch of my high school friends

Tonight, after the Christening party, Brenna decided to do something new. She ate food! Maybe it was the spirit of Thanksgiving, maybe it was the fact that she's a big six-month-old now, but whatever it was, Brenna decided that sweet potatoes are not all that bad. She didn't love them, but she decided that if she held the spoon with me, she'd tolerate them...

I didn't say it was pretty. It was a HUGE step though, and I don't care if she has to eat sweet potatoes until she can cook sweet pototoes herself, she actually swallowed solid food without screaming her head off. It was amazing.

Finally, it was so nice to spend four full days with Brenna, and I'm sad that it's back to our normal schedule tomorrow. Especially since Brenna and I both have a cough, and her cough is really bad at night, so she just clings to us and needs to be held for much longer before she's down for good. It's hard to think about being apart tomorrow. I can't wait until Christmas Break now!