Thanksgiving Visit

This year, my family came to Houston for Thanksgiving. We had a great holiday! How special it is to have 2 new little members of our family to enjoy the holiday with. They got here on Tuesday and stayed until Saturday. Even Sly (my brother's springer and Oyster's brother) came along for the trip.

On Thanksgiving, Justin did the turkey. He made a "holiday" brine for the turkey with cranberry, orange, apple, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, garlic, and salt. He brined the turkey overnight and then cooked it in his greaseless turkey fryer. It was delicious. The turkey was 20 lbs! The Big Easy only holds a 16 so parts of the outside looked black but the inside was amazing. It was moist and had a great flavor. I say his first brine was a success!

On Thanksgiving night, Mom and I found out that the premium outlets here were having midnight madness. All the stores opened at 11:00pm instead of 5am. She and I (crazy people) helped Justin with the 10:00 feeding and then got dressed and headed to the outlets. We had 3 destinations in mind. Carter's for the babies, Brooks Brothers for the men, and Coach for us! We got there at 10:45 and the cars were piling in. We go to Coach first to get in line and seriously.. there had to be several hundred people already lined up. It was down the side of the building, around the back, and all the way to the other entrance of the outlets. Crazy! It was a 3 hour wait when we got there. And we had to be home for the 2:00am feeding. So no Coach for us. We went to Carter's and had a blast. The entire store was 50% off + an additional 10% for being there at midnight and I had brought along 20% off coupons. I racked up and bought the boys clothes through 12 months and didn't pay more that $6.00 for anything! Their Dee Dee helped out too so they now they have pajamas and things for each size through next fall. We also hit up Baby Gap and Brooks Brothers and then headed home. I walked through the door just as Beckett started crying. I stayed up until 6:00am feeding and changing and rocking! Fortunately my dad showed up at 7:15 and let me take a long nap. But it was totally worth it :-)

Friday brought the Iron Bowl! I would love to say that we enjoyed watching the game together but it was really stressful. Not a pretty win at all. Dee Dee got nervous and kept holding Eli and Beckett as her good luck charms. When that didn't work, she and Eli went to the nursery and took a nap in the glider! Fortunately, we were able to pull out the win. Roll Tide! The boys are looking forward to the Gators on Saturday. I have their lucky outfits and blankets ready to go. They have worn them for every game since they were born and so far.. no losses!

Poppy playing with the boys