Thanksgiving, Marianne and Grandma MaryAnne

 I just had one of the best Thanksgivings ever. It was right up there with the year Amy invented her patented turkey drawing (1989), and Tyler's wedding (2010), and my first experience seeing the bonfire at the turkey pit at Uncle Casey's house (2009).
This year we were able to go to Mesa again to see my family...but it was Marianne's first trip and it was super SUPER special because she got to meet her Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Hansen (or Grandma With The Gum - as my older kids call her because she always gives them gum). Marianne is named after her great grandma - MaryAnne Hansen. I changed the spelling on her name because Grandma said it bothered her that people always called her Mary instead of her full name.
Anyway - the best story from the trip was our last visit to see Grandma and Grandpa. I wanted a picture with me and Grandma and Marianne, so Rus took one:

Marianne is a pretty particular little girl - she really just likes me and Rus and no one else. I wanted a picture with just her and Grandma but I wasn't sure if she would put up with sitting on Grandma's lap. I decided to hurry and throw her on Grandma's lap and have Rus take the picture quickly. Lo and behold, Marianne was perfectly content to just snuggle down and let Grandma hold her.

While on Grandma's lap, Marianne watched the other kids get pieces of gum from the side table. She slid down and claimed her own piece of gum. I tried to get it away from her and she ran back to Grandma and wanted up. She snuggled for a few minutes and then slid down. I said, "Marianne, give me your gum," and she ran back to Grandma and wanted up again. I guess Grandma was home base where she was safe to mangle a piece of gum (in its wrapper), in peace. Grandma was tickled pink to have Marianne like her so much! That one thing made the whole trip worth it. This is my favorite picture of them. What you don't see is the gum in Marianne's little fist.

The kids enjoyed visiting Grandma and Grandpa because they have a neighbor across the street with an electric model train. He turned it on for them and they were captivated following it around for about 45 minutes.

We did dinner a little differently on Thanksgiving day. It turns out three of my cousins and one uncle live within a mile of each other, so we did a progressive dinner. I liked it because we got to see where they each live and it stretched out the normal eating time of fifteen minutes into several hours. Of course the destination everyone really wanted to get to was the pie house - and that's because McKenna made them and they were amazing. I'm talking German Chocolate Pie Amazing.
I didn't get to see Amanda and her family on turkey day because they were with Eric's family. And Amy and Mike were in the area but with Mike's family. So on Saturday we all got together to have a picnic at the park. It was really fun to see the cousins play. Madison, Bekah, and Sarah are each nine months apart; they had fun riding scooters all around the park. Did I mention that I love Mesa for Thanksgiving because the weather is always SO beautiful?! It was actually pretty warm - in the eighties. My girl has some growing to do...Sarah is catching up to her!

Here is Bekah in her super chic hat I bought her the day before. It was on clearance. She loves hats. I couldn't resist. She forgot that Mesa was a warm place and only brought her boots.

 We also went on a hike so Jacob could get up close with some saguaros. He had just finished up a desert unit at school and was intensely spewing out facts about cacti and desert animals. He was ecstatic to see so many saguaro on this trip.


 It was a GREAT trip. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family!