Turkey/ Birth Days

Hey guys, I'm back. We've been road warriors the past couple of days celebrating Thanksgiving and a couple of birthdays around here and there. This was our first official holiday spent together period. We always split up over the holidays when we were dating and decided that it might be nice to start celebrating together. I'll admit, it was nice having Kyle around. I think he makes a nice addition to my family. We started Turkey Week off with some time in the kitchen doing what I do best, "Micro-Baking." Basically, if you can dip it in (microwave melted) chocolate I've pretty much dunked it. I made some goodies to take on the road with us to our various stops.

Our holiday/birthday weekend started Wednesday when we traveled down to Dothan to visit my family. Wednesday night we hung out with my mother's side of the family and celebrated my grandmother, Mama Hall's birthday with some oysters and shrimp. I haven't seen many of my family members since we got married so it was so good to see them! It was really nice seeing my cousin Stacey who will be expecting a girl (Anna Beth) in February. This will be the 1st great grandchild on my mother's side so we are excited for a baby to join the bunch.

                       Cousin Clay and Kyle

                             Eating some oysters

                Aunt Kay, Daddy Hall and my Mom

I really think Mama Hall enjoyed her birthday cake. She admitted she doesn't think she's ever had one. She's probably one of the sweetest grandmothers ever. I just love her. She along with my other grandmother and Daddy Hall are very special people and hold a special place in my heart. Since we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family, Mama Hall made us some dressing to take back to Birmingham. I was pretty pumped about that.

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Thursday morning we got up and celebrated The Dan Man and Kyle's birthdays. Yes, my dad and Kyle share a birthday. I about spit my drink out when I found out that Kyle's birthday was November 24th when we started dating. I was like, "are you for real?!" O well, there's nothing we can do about that. Guess they'll just have to share that date. My sweet and talented sister, Hayden made the birthday boys their cake. She did an amazing job! The pictures do not do it justice. She actually cut the A- shape of that cake herself and iced it. Amazing. She's better than me at cooking...she's Martha.

This picture cracks me up. It pretty much sums up life around the Hayes household. My mom is probably trying to teach me how to do something in the kitchen while my dad looks on sharing his opinion. I can hear him now, "if I were doing that..."

It was nice being home for about 17 hours. I especially love seeing all my mom's fall decor. Can't wait to be home a little bit longer over Christmas!!!

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After celebrating the birthdays, we headed to my Aunt Gail's house to celebrate Thanksgiving with my dad's side of the family. We had a great time catching up with everyone and playing with all of the great grand-kids. The way my dad's family is set up, it seems like there have always been little kids around so there is never a dull moment. We loaded up on some of our turkey day favorites and spent some time outside with the fam.

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Thursday after lunch we headed to Montgomery. This was a huge change of pace. We went from being around a whole bunch of family and little kids to just hanging with Kyle's parents and brother. It was nice just to be able to chill. Since we had already had a big meal that day, we decided to do a Thanksgiving meal on Friday. However, Kyle did make room for some more birthday cake. His mom made him a lemon meringue pie. One of his favs.

It was such a beautiful day and we enjoyed ourselves helping Kyle's parents cook. Kyle made the sweet potato casserole and helped his dad fry a turkey and I did a whole bunch of everything including fixing the green beans. 

After a delicious lunch and a nap Kyle and I headed over to his friend Wes' home to hang out with his wife Kristi, their 2 year old son, Brannon and Kyle's other friend, Shawn and his wife, Allie and their new baby Avery. We enjoyed catching up with everyone and playing with all of the babies. Brannon is fully of energy and was learning how to use the potty. He is going to have a new baby sister, Peyton next Tuesday. Poor child doesn't know he's about to loose all the attention.

While it was SO much fun playing with the babies, I'm not going to lie, it was nice being able to go home Friday night and know we could sleep through the whole night without being woken up and sleep until 9. We're going to enjoy life with just the 2 of us for a while.

Saturday Kyle's mom and I went to Southern Homes and Gardens to pick up some Christmas decor then went home to watch the Iron Bowl. Watching Bama win was a nice end to the weekend.