Over the River and Through the Woods

We definitely traveled over several rivers (including the Mississippi River) and through a lot of woods to head to Grandma and Grandpa's house just outside St. Louis, MO.  Thanksgiving was a special treat this year because all my family traveled to my parents house- including my older brother and his family, my younger brother, and my grandparents.  My older brother and his wife (from California) have two little girls that we had not even met yet!  So my parents house was busy- 9 adults and 3 kids that were 2 and under!  It was so much fun having everyone together again and watching Amelia play with her cousins.  Such special memories!  We did have a photographer come and take our whole family picture as well as individual family pictures- those will be coming soon!  We have so much to be thankful for this year!

These are just a few of the things I am thankful for:

This is almost the whole family- minus my Grandma and Grandpa at the St. Louis Arch

Amelia and Grandma- unfortunately after this picture my camera battery died so I didn't get any other pictures from actual Thanksgiving Day.

Playing piano with Daddy

Amelia playing piano with cousin Kira (Kira is exactly 1 year older than Amelia)

tub time with cousins (Alyssa-13 months, Kira- 2 1/2 yrs, Amelia- 20 months)

my child was dubbed the "wild child" by family this week

Grandpa and Amelia- at the St. Louis Arch

waiting to take the "tram" to the top of the arch

Grandpa getting in the "tram"- more like a small pod with 5 chairs

Amelia riding on the "tram" to the top of the arch

Amelia and Daddy looking out a window at top of the arch

Amelia and cousin Kira checking out the view

Amelia absolutely LOVED the arch- she could not get enough of looking out the windows and pointing to things way way below

Uncle Will and Amelia

After visiting the St. Louis arch we went to a mall that had a little carousel in the food court.  Even though she is not smiling- Amelia really enjoyed riding the horses

Waving to daddy!  I could barely fit in between the two horses and Amelia was doing so well on her horse I decided to get on the one beside her.

What a great trip!  The only negative- it took us an extra 4 hours to get home because of the rain and all the Thanksgiving traffic!  An 8 hour trip (including a long stop for breakfast and a couple of other stops) took about 12 hours on the way back!  Ugg!  Amelia did great though- that's a long time for a little girl to sit still!