Christmas Village at the Bass Pro Shop in St. Louis

So, backing up a few hours... While we were waiting for the turkey to cook, we headed over to the Bass Pro-Shop because they had free pictures with Santa and they were open on Thanksgiving day.  Little did we know that they had much, MUCH more than just pictures with Santa!  It was so awesome!  And there was nobody there because of the holiday, so we got to play and play.  And the extra cool thing is that EVERYTHING was free!  Can't beat that!

Carousel ride #2 (see the post about the St. Louis Zoo) went much smoother!

Look!  No tears!

A cute one of Uncle Parker and Cousins Emily and Abby

The fam

K-Man enjoying his candy cane from Santa, and me enjoying two of my favorite kids in the world

Who knew they made a pink Red Ryder BB Gun?

Daddy showing K-Man how to shoot

A fun racetrack.  Emily was pretty good at this one.

K-Man checking out the trains

Emily and K-Man writing letters to Santa

Hard at work

Group picture.  Do we look hungry?  We are about to go home and eat our Thanksgiving feast!

Parker teaching Emily some bow-hunting skills a la Napoleon Dynamite

Camper Emily

The Big Dinner: Thanksgiving

The big day finally arrived and Sarah and I were excited to start cooking!  We started the rainbow jello a couple of days early, so we just had everything else to cook.  So, first thing in the morning (as you can tell from our tired morning faces) we got to work on the bird...

Sarah's family always layers bacon on top, which is going to be one of my traditions from now on!  Yum!

Sarah did the honors of placing the bird in the oven

Crunch time: Sarah's mashing the potatoes, Parker's carving the turkey, and apparently I'm supervising?  Maybe trying to get a few tastes in?

The kids were ready to eat!  By the way, that Sierra Mist with the cranberry in it is outstanding, I would recommend that you give it a try if you haven't already!

Time to load up the plates!  Mike has his just about full, and Sarah is close behind.

Rainbow jello: A family tradition for as long as we can remember

Yep, just a plate of salad and some jello for me, thanks.  Yeah right!! That was just the beginning!

I believe this was round two for Parker?

All in all, it was a delicious meal with some of our favorite people.  Hope you had a great one, too!

Pappy's Smokehouse - St. Louis

After we worked up our appetites in the Magic House, Parker and Sarah took us over to Pappy's Smokehouse, voted Best BBQ in St. Louis for as long as anyone can remember.  It has also been featured on Man vs. Food (check it out here).

K-Man was suuuuper-tired by this point, so he wasn't his usual, smiley self, but the food was great!  We all got ribs and they were really good, especially when you added the different bbq sauces they had.

Apparently our niece always get free stuff when she goes there, like t-shirts and stuff!  This is her showing off her cool temporary tattoo.

Sooo yummy!  Thanks for showing us a true St. Louis-style barbecue, Parker and Sarah!!

The Magic House - St. Louis's Children's Museum

If you are ever in St. Louis and you have children of any age traveling with you, the Magic House is a MUST.  They have three floors filled with all kinds of cool stuff...

Yeah.  These chairs really were musical.  Every time you sat down, they played music!  With all of us sitting up and down at the same time, we sounded like a symphony.

K-Man checking out the giant chalkboard

Rolling balls

Steering a boat with Dad

Playing in the ball pit

Trying to steal the camera from Mom

Okay, so I know this isn't the best picture, but it was right in the entryway and there were tons of people around and I had to be down on the floor taking the picture up.  But K-Man thought these balloons (which were permanent fixtures) were probably the coolest things in the place.  You can kind of tell that he's saying "Wowwww!" which is one of his favorite things to say right now.

Our little pilgrim children

Cousin Emily pulling the rope to blow the train whistle

Mike thought this would be a funny picture because Amy hates worms

That metal wall is a giant magnet

And that is just a teeny tiny sample of all the cool stuff we did at the Magic House.

Chillaxing with the Fam

Despite all of the fun stuff we did in St. Louis, we still found time to hang out, 

Paint fingernails

Take naps

Eat crayons

Have bathtime and dress up as Princess Aurora

Play games

And hold our sweet little niece, Abby

What an awesome family we have!