thankful for family

last thursday we split our time between my grandma's place and jesse's cousin's. we ate yummy food - well, jesse, gia, and i did. luca ate two bites of a roll and half a piece of chocolate cake. this kid typically has a large appetite, but the extrovert in him was having too much fun playing. he did enjoy one of my favorite childhood holiday traditions - putting black olives on his fingers. in my youth, howevever, my sister and i ate dozens of olives before food was even served. luca's take on this was to make other people eat the olives. his comment, "no taste good, mama. no like it. you eat dem."

here is a great photo of most of the cousins on my mom's side. from left to right, back row to front row: cameron, christian, myself, bobby, justin, maura, max, britney.


my aunt monique met gia for the first time on thanksgiving.



we saved dessert for the hart family. (chocolate cake from portillos!) luca had so much fun running around and showing off his tattoos while gia continued to make beelines for the stairs when she wasn't being held.

below: luke holding gia and marissa tickling luca. (i met these two on thanksgiving 9 years ago when they were smaller than gia - time flies!)




i am so thankful that we have so much family we want to see for the holidays. it can be hard trying to split our time and see as many people as possible, but i would take that hardship over not having any family to visit. our children will grow up with so many around that love them. when i start to add our dear friends to that list, i feel overwhelmed. i could never be thankful enough for all you mean to us. we love you all!