Turkey Day!

Just some random fun from November and Thanksgiving.  This year we drove down to my mom's place in Springfield and celebrated with her side of the family.  It was a nice change of pace from last year, which was spent eating hospital cafeteria turkey with new baby James.  I had felt bad because my uncle was hosting for the first year - doing the whole meal by himself - and had settings for Adam & I and was all ready to show off his turkey to us.  Obviously we never made it to dinner but everyone who did later came to visit us at the hospital.  The upside of a Thanksgiving birth having almost our whole family come and meet James the day he was born.  I so clearly remember all the flowers, cards, visitors, and sweet phone calls.  I was really happy to have our son at the table with the rest of the family this year.  He tried some cranberry sauce (a new favorite), some stuffing (ambivalence), and some sweet mashed potatoes (always a favorite, but especially when Grandma Sue makes them and includes marshmallow topping...)

James & friends taking a good nap 

James discovers a discarded vanilla ice cream carton in the recycling.  No doubt there were a few tasty drops of melted cream left inside for him to try.  This is the look of a baby who did NOT want to part with his new toy.

Primate-style fatherly grooming

Just doing some light reading on the way down.  Did you know 1-year olds are very good at reading upside-down?

Pretty table.  (With the exception of the Cheez-Its and sippy cup at the end there.)

My brother, who cooked us an organic, hand-raised turkey and roasted it all by himself.  It was delicious and fed us for many meals afterwards!

Wes's first bird.  I told mom to put this photo in his baby book.

Wes & Mom, who cooked almost every dish on the table.

In true Howe family style, we played frisbee out on the golf course with the vain hopes of working off some of the calories we'd eaten...sadly I don't think we even came close!