Although I like to fool myself and believe that Lora and her family came all the way from Florida just to spend Thanksgiving with her favorite sibling, I knew that the real reason they came was so we could watch their kiddos while they house-hunted in China.  I don't care!  I take what I can get.  Plus, I was so excited to watch those sweet kids (especially my little twins.)  I thought that it wouldn't be too much of a problem until I realized that Robert was going to be traveling for a lot of that time.

Mom knew that, no matter how willing I was to do it, I would probably lose my mind trying to do it all myself.  So she swooped in and saved me.  Mom and Dad arrived the day after Thanksgiving.  They were able to spend a day with Lora, Mark and Porter before they took off to the other side of the world.

Here Lora is, right about to run outside to catch her plane.

And then the fun started.

These two little girls are really something else.  They slept through every night.  (about 8-10 hours)  They rarely cried and smiled as soon as you looked at them.  Really, they are little angels.

Church Christmas party.

Grandpa pulling double duty.

These kids also played non stop during the day.  It was so nice having kids play during the school day instead of having one little guy expecting me to actually parent him during the day.

This girl read stories to the little boys for an hour straight.  

I decided what I really needed, while Mom was in town, was a picture of Alaina, Mom and Me.

Alaina loved it.  As you can see.

I also decided that we needed an artsy fartsy hand picture.

And finally, we needed to take Mom and Dad's Christmas photo.  Here are my favs.

We had a someone take a picture of us at the park.   Even with the bunny ears, I think we are looking pretty good.  Seriously mom!

Talking to Lora and Mark via skype

Here is Robert getting the kids to 'help' out with the Christmas lights.  What a trooper.

They even slept exactly the same.  :)

We didn't have to work hard to get great pictures of them.

But I think this little candid is my all time favorite.

Shoot.  Now that I posted this, I'm missing my little twinnies.  We tried to keep at least one of them, but Lora took all her children with her when they got back.  Rude.

Thanksgiving 2017

It was beautiful and delicious, but it was the company that made it perfect.

The littles at their own table.

The Food.

Alaina provided us with our veggie turkey.

AND....dessert.  Yum.  I made a couple of new ones this year and both turned out pretty darn good.  Raspberry soufflé and key lime pie.  Of course, apple pie and pumpkin pie were both on the menu too.

The pie maker.

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, we took both of our families out to take pictures.  (We decided to do the pictures on separate days so that we didn't have to try and keep 10 kids happy at the same time.)  It turned out to be wonderful days for photos.

The first day I took Lora and the family to Sims park.  Ethan decided to be my aid and helped out with getting little kids to smile.  Here is our best family picture.  Don't they look wonderful? 

We took a few pictures of the kids by themselves.

The babies weren't as photogenic in their single pictures.  Anna's picture didn't turn out...so....

Here is Anna

And here is Audrey.

I bet I fooled ya.  

They really were good little girls the whole, long, photo session.

Here is my assistant.  Pretty cute.

And US.

The next day, the Jones family went out.  Same lake.  Same great light.  The only really difference is that my youngest got mad at something in the very beginning and, no joke, glared in about 90% of all the pictures.  I shake my fist at that child!  Emmett!!!!

To prove I'm not making that up, here is one example of the many, many ruined photos.  This one wouldn't have been my favorite, anyway, but still.  He was such a pill.

We did managed to pull him out of the slumps near the very end and ended up with this photo.

These two were our close seconds.

The individual pictures ended up like they always do.  Alaina was happy to pose as many times as I asked.  Jason also likes a good photoshoot.  So, I got some great ones of those two.  

Austin was game to take one good picture and when he got it...that was it.

Although, he did let me take a brothers pic.

Emmett finally started to smile right before we left, but refused to sit still for more than 2 seconds at a time.  We still managed to get one good one.

Right when we got Emmett to smile, Ethan decided that he was absolutely done with taking pictures. The child is looking so grown up these days, but boy, can he whine.

This picture was taken in the first 10 minutes.  

After that, we were all doing what we could to make him smile.  Here's Lora giving it a try.

Robert agreed to an arm wrestle competition.

But the only real smile we got was when he didn't realize we were taking a picture of him.

Alaina took this one of me.

My favorite daughter.

And a few honorable mentions.

The boys  playing in the leaves.

A stolen moment.

Robert and his (finally!) smiling shadow.

The photoshoot is finally over.