Thankful!

Ian and I were able to travel to Missouri to spend Thanksgiving with my family. We had a wonderful time and got to meet our beautiful little niece, Emma. Here's a video I took on our second morning there... (Still working on getting this uploaded correctly!)



She was such a sweet snuggle bug. In some ways, it was nice to get to meet her when she's a little older (two months!), since she has started smiling and really engaging when she's awake. She was so precious and attentive when I explained to her the importance of mashed potatoes for an Irish baby. :) We really had a wonderful, low-key visit. Unfortunately, my sister wasn't able to make it, but my mother, all of my brothers and their wives were there. Most of the times the family has been able to get together recently have been for weddings or other involved events. It was really nice to just have time to hang out and enjoy each other's company. My siblings (spouses included!) are really some of my favorite people in the world. I'm so thankful to have such a fabulous family! We took the opportunity of having almost everyone together to have some family portraits done. I'm very happy with how they came out. I actually bought frames the day we got back to Charlotte and we're planning to hang them up today. I'm very excited. :)

I'm also very excited that most of the family will be coming to Charlotte for Christmas. It sure made it easier to leave everyone last week, since we knew we'd be seeing most of them again soon. (Joe & Jill, we'll miss you!) I don't know what I'm going to do after New Year's! Until then, I'm just going to be very thankful for the time I have to spend with them!