Thanksgiving 2007

Our family spent Thanksgiving at my sister's house in Midland this year. It was a change from our usual every other year gathering at my parents house. Hutton had football practice on Thursday morning and Lee Ann and Tod really wanted to be home this year, so we headed west.

God provided great food and several inches of snow. It was Emily's first introduction to snow and she loved it! We couldn't get her to come inside. We ate, watched football, saw a movie and had a great snowball fight.

Emily and Rainey had a blast in the snow!

My girls and my brothers girls, The Bailey girls of North Hurst: Rainey, Caitlin, Jordan and Emily.

The three oldest granddaughters: Bailey (in her first year at ACU), Caitlin (Jr. in high school) and Jordan (in her second year at Harding).

My brother preparing to fire. Yes, even Uncle J. (aka Uncle JJ, aka Uncle PJ) got into the fight.

My sister Lee Ann was just taking pictures, but couldn't avoid having to dodge a few snowballs.

Tod after being attacked by his children.

The cousins: Rainey, Hutton, Jordan, Bailey, Caitlin, and Emily and Reagan in front (notice Tod in the background about to nail them with a snowball).

Of course, we missed Connor who would have loved every minute of the weekend. His absence was glaring. The empty space at our table and in our pictures is still difficult to comprehend. As you can see from the pictures, however, we are not destroyed. We shed some tears over the holiday, but we laughed a lot too. We missed him in laughter and tears.

Many of you have told me you were thoughtful and prayerful for our family over the weekend. Words cannot express how much that means to us.