Mauck Thanksgiving baby fun

We made it home last night from two days of family fun in Kansas. There were five babies born in 2007: Drew in February, Lauren in March (2 months early), Claire in May, Kerrigan in June, and Katelyn two weeks ago! The second picture is the closest I came to capturing all of them at once. We wanted to get a shot of all of them lined up on a couch or something, but we never could get all five awake and/or not eati ng at once! The Maucks are such a great family; I'm so proud to be a part of it. We have a couple world-traveling businessmen, an army wife and mom who's also a full-time ER nurse, farmers, teachers, stay-at-home moms, and of course, tons of cute kids! Including the babies, I counted ten kids under the age of five, and then our niece and nephew Zach and Abby, who are the big kids now, at 9 and 12.

The top pic is of Claire and Drew, the son of Tracy and Kourt, Jay's cousins who were so kind as to host us for a couple nights. His big brother Dylan was very good at entertaining Claire, and got her laughing really hard more than once. The third pic is of Jay and his cousin Matt, who along with Kim Mauck #1, had the fourth Mauck baby girl this year, Katelyn. The last pic is of Claire and cousin Kerrigan. It's becoming increasingly difficult to get a focused picture of Claire, as she's usually in motion.

Claire acquired a new skill while we were up there; she can now wave at people! She's been quite interested in twisting her hand at the wrist for the past couple weeks, but on Thursday, she started making this motion at people, and would smile and continue when they waved back. It's so neat so see her become so socially interactive!

Last year, we got to play some Nertz, but this year, with all the babies, we were all retiring by 9! We'll have to make up for it next year!

We still got to enjoy some Black Friday shopping, something experienced for the first time last year, as the Pannell family Thanksgiving has always been held on Friday. We're not a part of the hard-core bunch who leave at 6 a.m., but we did get out of the house by eight and hit up Target and a few other stores before coming back for lunch.

Claire handled the driving okay, considering she usually fusses after being in her seat for five minutes. With me and either Jay or Maw-Maw (Diane) sitting beside her, she seemed much more content. I kept a steady stream of toys and songs and games of peek-a-boo coming. Five hours was about her limit though; even after one stop, the last hour was a struggle both times. I think she was refusing to resign herself to what she probably thought was her life imprisonment.