Another Thanksgiving come and gone.  Another five pounds added to my mid section.

But I'll take some extra fat cells and tighter jeans any day if it means we get to spend a holiday with family.  The only downside is the time when everyone leaves and we are left with an empty house.  Add in the fact that Nick is in the field this entire week so its extra lonely.  I miss Texas.  I miss our families. 

Anyways, here are some pictures to recap Thanksgiving Throwdown 2012. 

Let me start by saying that Nick's older brother and his family couldn't make the trip to NC so we did what any normal family would do and made a life size cutout of his face.  We then proceeded to take pictures with him throughout the entire weekend.  Weird or awesomely genius?  I'll go with the latter.  

Here is Diana Jenks.  I seriously almost peed in my pants at this point because I was laughing so hard.

Patrice and Bret brought their two bulldogs down from VA so a total of four bulldogs parading around the house led to some chaos.  And a lot of gas.

Audrey was in hog heaven.  Please oh please let her be a vet and not an animal hoarder when she grows up.

So sweet!

Ok, so now onto the most important part:  food!  Nick smoked a pork shoulder back in July for Audrey's birthday that everyone enjoyed so we figured we would recreate that masterpiece for Thanksgiving.  I, for one, think its kinda cool we can deviate from the norm and be perfectly content not having turkey (I got quite the backlash when I told friends we were having pulled pork).  To each his own!  At least we didn't zonk out afterwards from the tryptophan.  We simply zonked out because we were in a food coma.  

These sweets were actually our appetizers.  Raspberry bars, banana bread, fudge...oh my.

Canine and humans alike had to close their eyes for a bit after that feast...

Even Jenks gave the grub two fingers.  Ehh..well, if he had two fingers I'm sure he would have given them.

I honestly don't know if I will ever be able to do a holiday without Nick.  He is the brains behind our kitchen and I feel lost if he isn't there.  As dorky as he is, he's kinda awesome.

Ok, the next few pictures are going to be out of order but I'm too lazy to spend 30 more minutes rearranging them so here we go:

Attempted family pics at the beach.  This time we included los perros.

Our plan failed.  Audrey ran straight into a wave, tumbled down, and was soaked from head to toe.

I know, I know.  We are bad parents for laughing while this was happening but I promise she recovered very quickly.

Whats this?  A picture of Nick and I?  Hasn't happened in nearly 2.5 years because usually there is a little person hanging on for dear life to one of our legs.

Even with this crappy time change, we managed to prolong the time outside by swinging.  Over and over and over again.

We took another nap...

And got to play with makeup (just a little)...

Then took another nap....

We went to the park to play in the leaves and realized Reggie (aka "Pig") is quite the acrobat.

Their four granddogs.

We made some delicious homemade rolls with Grumma J....

And guess who loves cranberry sauce?  Maybe because she helped to make it?

While the kitchen was being overwhelmed with recipes and food and dishes, Grandpa did an awesome job of keeping Audrey entertained.

All of you on Facebook have probably seen this picture.  Geez, my inlaws are crazy weird, aren't they?  

Here we are pretending to be normal.

Audrey striking a pose.

Wayne helping himself to leftovers.  He even opened the door by himself.  And who says bulldogs are dumb?

I have to give major props to Audrey for rocking the side pony.  She is going to be so much cooler than her mom.

When I think of Thanksgiving 2012, this image will most likely stick in my mind: bulldogs begging for food.