Thanksgiving 2013...

I'm late with this post, but what's new?  It's the season to be behind, right?

No?

Well, I am.

But I'm doing the best I can with this massive to-do list I stare at every day.

And here's another thing I can cross off -- a post on our Thanksgiving this year!

We were home this year which is very rare.  We normally go to my parents' house in Lexington for Thanksgiving, but this year, Jeff's older brother and his family planned to come visit over the Thanksgiving holiday.  So we were here, and it was great!  I cooked the meal with the exception of the turkey, which my husband TOTALLY nailed.  So guess what?  He has that job FOR.LIFE.  If we're here, he's doing the turkey.

Until Jesus comes back.

He soaked our 14 lb turkey in a brine the night before.  The next morning, he put it in the oven at 500 degrees (I didn't even know my oven would get that hot!) for 1/2 an hour, and then threw it in a oil-less fryer for a few hours.  The rest of the meal came together wonderfully.  I made (ahem) homemade mashed potatoes that were so creamy, green bean casserole (in the oven, cuz that's the way Jeff likes it :), sweet potato casserole (which Jeff's brother said was "phenomenal"), rolls and gravy.

Oh, yeah.

We rocked that Thanksgiving meal.

Everyone enjoyed the meal and just being together.  Scott and his family live in Illinois (like almost everyone else in Jeff's family :) so we don't see them often.  We're grateful that they made the trip down to NC to visit.

And I'm grateful to my sister-in-law, Jill, who took all these awesome photos!

one month...

We have a one month old, ya'll. 

How?  Tell me, where has the time gone??  Everyone told me that it would go by so fast and I figured that to be true, but it blows me away that our child has been with us for over a month now...

We gave Deacon his first bottle at 25 days old.  Jeff has been ready to feed Deacon himself and I've wanted to let him but didn't want to risk any confusion with breastfeeding so we waited.  It turns out that Deacon has his Daddy's temperament -- he's pretty easy going.  :)  He switches between breast & bottle with no trouble at all.  We're not feeding him formula -- just breastmilk that I'm able to pump and store in the refrigerator or freezer, depending on when we need it.  It's been so nice having this option for times when we're out and about and especially for when we're at church.

[25 days old, with his first bottle of breastmilk]

Deacon met his Wenzel grandparents for the first time at 4 weeks old.  Jeff's mom & dad (aka Grandpa Duane and Grandma Sherry) flew in from IL for the week of Thanksgiving.  We picked them up from the Wilmington airport and Sherry barely had him in her arms before the waterworks started.  :)  She was so excited to finally meet Deacon.  We had been skyping with them since he was born so she said she felt like she already knew him but she couldn't wait to get her hands on him.  It was love at first sight, to be sure.  Duane was pretty excited to meet him, too.  :)

[4 weeks old, with Grandpa Duane & Grandma Sherry]

Deacon's first Thanksgiving was spent in our home with his Wenzel grandparents.  Sherry and I cooked the meal together, which wasn't anything fancy but it was yummy.  Jeff carved his first turkey.  It was a quiet day for us all, different from Thanksgivings in the past, but it was nice nonetheless.

There isn't anything really Thanksgiving-y about our photo.  It's just one that we took of the 3 of us to commemorate Deacon's first Thanksgiving.  I've heard people talk about how hard it is to get a family photo to turn out well with kids -- I guess that starts pretty early...

This is the best one we got out of 4-5 attempts:

The rest of these photos are random ones we took in Deacon's 4th week of life and the few days after, leading up to one month:

Don't you love little baby feet & hands??

[22 days old]

[27 days old]

[1 month old]

[27 days old]

[4 weeks old]

[27 days old]

[4 weeks old]

[1 month old]