Thank You Thanksgiving

It's so fun to see the kids experiencing and learning about our holiday traditions. And with both grandmas living here and the Vancouver Mays in town, we had plenty of family fun time to engage in those traditions. During Thanksgiving prep night at Grandma Baker's house (an annual tradition of stuffing bread chopping), Emerson and Stella discovered The Lion King for the first time. Of course Emerson couldn't get enough of Scar and Stella tried to keep pace with her ferocious roars.
Our Thanksgiving was a gut-busting division between the Baker and May households, with excellent food at both. It's so nice to enjoy all of the traditional Thanksgiving food and Grandpa Baker's annual Thanksgiving program. We're so lucky to have so much family close by (and decent metabolisms that can cope with the culinary consequences).
Tad had his first days off work since our Disneyland trip last February, so we hit up all of the essential kid fun locations with the cousins: Hogle Zoo, the Aquarium, Temple Square Christmas lights, Trax trains, and randomly the Southtown Mall carousel. And despite the abundance of Thanksgiving food, we managed to squeeze in trips to most of our favorite restaurants as well. We hereby declare it a successful family visit! Thanks to all of our family, especially Ethan for being the ultimately patient older cousin and Uncle Tim for being the pied piper of children!
In non-holiday-related news, Tad tried his first felony case this past month. He acted as second chair, but was fortunate to both give the opening statement and examine two witnesses. It was a fairly complicated case due to the nature of the charges, so Tad felt a little nervous about the opening statement. As it turns out, he had no need to be; the jury returned a guilty verdict in only twenty minutes (less time than it takes to read the jury instructions). In addition, Tad has received compliments from multiple judges and fellow prosecutors on his performance and we feel truly blessed that he enjoys his job almost every day.
Stella continues to blossom. She has more of a risk-taking element to her personality than Emerson did at this stage (e.g. she sits on the stairs and leans forward to make us think she's about to fall). Her verbal skills truly amaze us; she can say Emerson's name perfectly, combine several words ("I want a hat") with ease and identify all major shapes. But the only shows she'll watch for more than ten seconds are Wallace and Gromit shows.
Emerson is such a gift to us. He and Tad are reading Harry Potter together and he's now counting down the days to Christmas. He totally idolizes his cousin, Ethan, and is enjoying learning more about numbers at home. His newest cute-ism comes each night when he insists on having Mom come in his room and repeatedly kiss and hug him until one of them cries for mercy.