Thanksgiving

We have quite a lot to be thankful for this year, and we had quite the celebration this holiday. Brian gave the sermon at church on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. After the Thursday morning service we left Macomb and headed to Chicago. It was an uneventful trip considering the dire weather predictions of the previous days and thankfully there was really not a lot of congestion on the roads. We arrived in Chicago around 3:30 and were able to celebrate with my parents, Katie, Michael, Stephanie (Mike's girlfriend), and Nana. We even got a visit from Tony. As always the food and old fashions were great. We went Christmas shopping with all the other crazy people on black Friday and had our traditional after Thanksgiving meals of leftover turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sandwiches for lunch and Lou Malnati's pizza for dinner. We had a baby shower on Saturday and that was awesome. I will post more on that later. It was simply great to be with family over the weekend. I am glad we have a few pictures to remember the weekend. The one at top is of Brian the instigator and his favorite prey, My Mom. He always seems to be able to get her going. The one at the bottom right is of my Dad washing dishes after dinner. I felt his helpfulness need be commemorated. Love you guys!

Birthday Video

For my birthday Brian made me the video above. He is such the sweetheart! It is so funny for me to look at pre-pregnancy pictures of myself. I also love the song he picked though I'm not sure we ever drank three bottles of redwine...Well, we may have been close a few times. Such fun times, Thanks Bri.

Baby Shower Take 2

What a busy but great weekend! Last week Wednesday my Mom made it into town and on Saturday the Davies joined us for our second baby shower. Some women from St. Peter put it together for us and it was wonderful. There was a cake made out of diapers, a fancy homemade dessert cake, plenty of homemade brunch food, a scrapbook for remembrances, center pieces that were actually presents, many thoughtful gifts, and many many thoughtful people. It was overwhelming all the work people put into the shower and how truly generous they were in thinking of us and our little girl.
It was so nice for our Moms to be there and see how great the people of St. Peter are.
We spent most of the rest of the weekend processing all of our presents and continuing to set up the baby's room. The baby girl stuff was so much fun to go through and add to our nursery. After the shower Brian immediately went to Buffalo Wild Wings with his Dad, I think mostly to counter the morning shower with a little football, beer, and testosterone. Brian was just so grateful he didn't have to help me sort out onesies and diapers all weekend. As usual our parents were so much help and it was so fun to have them be a part of the experience. It is crazy to think the next time we see Linda and Wa, we won't be two Davies any longer but three!

Birthday Girl

Saturday was my 27th birthday and it couldn't have been better. During the day we were at the vendor fair and in the evening Brian and I went out to a wonderful celebratory dinner. We went to the new outdoor walking mall they built in town and ate at a restaurant called Brio Tuscan Grille. The mall is an outing in itself with a lot of upscale stores and an extravagant pavilion complete with a huge outdoor fire place. For dinner I had wonderful fillet medallions served with hollandaise sauce over Parmesan crusted roasted tomatoes. It was the best meal I've had since I was pregnant. For dessert they even had my favorite creme brulee. The leisurely evening out with my wonderful husband couldn't have been nicer. We came home and I opened my thoughtful gifts from that wonderful husband. My growing belly and I couldn't have been happier, what an awesome birthday!

Landmark Photography

On Saturday Brian sold some of his original pictures above at a St. Peter Vendor Fair. He donated all the profits from his sales towards the 8th grade class trip to Washington D.C. Being his wife, I'm the co-president (with his Mom of course) of the Brian Davies fan club so I might be just a little bias, but isn't he talented? The customers of the vendor fair must have thought so too because Brian sold 26 framed and unframed pictures and will be donating the proceeds from $360 in sales. What a fun afternoon.

October's End

This spring Brian and I planted a new maple tree. It is a Red October Maple and we can certainly see why it is so named. The tree is a beautiful sight out of our kitchen window. With the end of October, the leaves are now quickly falling, but we will look forward to its beautiful return in the spring.
Also, with the end of October is the end of pastor appreciation month. We have certainly enjoyed all the ways everyone has shown Brian their appreciation, from greeting cards, to baked goods, to gift cards. People have been so generous and thoughtful. One gift however, we must admit we will NOT be eating. Brian was once visiting a St. Peter family in their home and commented on the good aromas from the kitchen. The woman of the house replied that is was squirrel for dinner. Brian almost laughed thinking it was a joke, however, it was not...
It has now become an inside joke between Brian and the family (a wonderful family by the way). One day last week we came home and this family left a gift at our door. Can you guess what the mystery meat is? We are posting a picture so we can refrain from the famous Dave Barry line, "I am not making this up."