The Reed Family: The Rest of Thanksgiving

Please keep the Reed's in your prayers! Today, we found out that Papa John's brother Blake passed away in his sleep this morning. It has not been a very good week! Funeral is Saturday.

Ok to recap the rest of Thanksgiving, we woke up on Thanksgiving day to FREEZING temperatures. It was almost unbearable to go outside. I wanted to get a few pictures of the boys in front of the lake, but I didn't want their jackets on, so we ran outside for one second, took this picture, and ran back in! Didn't even have my big camera...only iphone.

It was a weird morning waiting at the house for the "call", but we tried to stay busy playing and do some cooking to pass the time. I'm normally a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade watcher, but the channel was out! I was so mad! :)

We still went on to lunch. The Livingston lunch has around 50 people there, so it was crowded! They have it at a hunting lodge nearby that is on the most beautiful property. Thankfully, the weather had warmed up a little and the boys got a lot of outside playing in with their second cousins while the rest of the family was inside telling good Papa John stories!

Clearly, I know nothing about taking pictures or I wouldn't have put Hudson in the sun and Harrison in the shade...oh well...

Hudson just loved playing with the big boys and they were so sweet to include him in everything.

Sweet boy!

We attempted a family picture, but it did not turn out good! Maybe we'll get one at Christmas!

After lunch, we did indeed get the call about Papa John. The funeral wasn't going to be until Sunday, so we went on to Mentone as originally planned for a couple of days. When we arrived on the mountain, Hudson immediately started playing with the next door neighbors and not even an hour after we arrived, we had a house full of little kids playing. It was so fun and a nice change of pace from earlier in the day. We needed it.

Friday morning, we took the kids to the aquarium in Chattanooga. We thought it might be a fun morning away and it did not disappoint! The boys loved it!

Butterflies!

Then, it was back to the cabin for more playing that afternoon. I think at one point, there were 15 kids playing all together out on the mountain and the adults were all enjoying our adult beverages visiting and watching them play...it was fabulous! I can't wait to go back soon!

Then it was nighttime...might be my favorite picture from the weekend! This was "Give me your mean face!"

We did not have the appropriate clothes for a funeral, so we headed home Saturday morning and raced to get our Christmas tree (because that was going to be our only opportunity to get one!). We watched the game at home and then decorated the tree, and then we decided that maybe only Joel should head back up to the lake for the funeral. We did not want the boys to disrupt the service and ruin Papa John's day! Here are a few pictures from getting the Christmas tree up and decorated.

It took about an hour to pick THE tree. We seriously have a hard time with real Christmas trees. None of them looked all that great and the kids lost interest very quickly! It was not as pleasant an experience as it may appear!

Hudson was my big helper! He helped me put on the lights and did most of the ornaments himself! He's getting so big. He is SO excited about Christmas. He even told me the other day that he was going to snoop and find his presents. My family is dying laughing at this because clearly it is payback as I was the QUEEN of snooping growing up. He has already told Joel about one of the presents that we bought him. So much for keeping a secret!