A Great Thanksgiving

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving and I hope you all did, too!



We had my parents, Waylon's parents and Andrea (Waylon's sister), Sean, and Savannah over to our house. My dad and I (mostly my dad!) made the 'staples' - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy - and everyone else brought a side or dessert to add to the mix. It was so yummy and such a fun day!

Pictures....

Noah sitting in his toy basket on Thanksgiving morning.

Waving to Santa on TV at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade!

This is Noah's new thing - if you ask him a question and he doesn't know the answer, he makes this gesture. It's too cute!! :-)
Hanging out with Nana and Grandad after a very short nap.
He didn't want to miss the party!
Dressed and ready!
Teaching me everything he knows about cooking a turkey! :-)

I had fun getting the table ready... I even made little nametags! :-)
I know, I'm a dork.
The spread
Sweet Savannah
Playing with the Grandmas!
Andrea and Sean

Hey Savannah!
Giving the polar bear a kiss - Waylon got this bear from a gift exchange at work, it sings a Christmas song and Noah loves it!
Waylon and I relaxing after a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Today was nice, too... this morning, we went to my aunt and uncle's house to visit with them and my cousins. I wish I had gotten some pictures there but I didn't. Noah fell asleep in the car on the way home (after eating a leftover turkey sandwich, of course!) and ended up sleeping for over 3 hours! He was in such a great mood tonight after that long nap. We ran out to a few stores after he woke up and had a great dinner out - just at Red Robin but Noah was so happy and pleasant so it made fora great dinner!

Tonight, Waylon and I enjoyed some leftover wine and watched a movie. Tomorrow, I'm going to join Waylon in watching the last State game of the season while his parents babysit Noah for most of the day. Should be a fun 'date day' for us! :-)

Happy Early Thanksgiving!

We are so excited about Thanksgiving this year! We are hosting for the first time ever.... although I can't take credit for doing it all... everyone is bringing a side and/or dessert and my parents will be here to help get things ready that morning, so I'm not really doing a whole lot. It will be fun to be at our own house though! Waylon's parents, my parents, and Andrea, Sean and Savannah will all be here to celebrate.

Now for this past weekend's update. We were actually home again which was nice. We got some errands run and did some catching up around here which is always nice.

I worked Thursday since I was off last Monday so it was still a 'full' week for me - all 3 days full! :-) On Friday morning, Noah and I went to the mall and called Nana last minute to see if she wanted to come meet us for lunch. That was a fun last minute decision! Noah was excited to see her and waved until she was out of sight when we left! :-)

Hanging with Nana in the food court

Waylon got home early on Friday so we ran a few errands, one of which was to change our phone plans... I got a new phone which was very exciting for me! :-) We were planning to get me a new MP3 player for Christmas but this new phone has a memory card and MP3 capabilities. It's been so fun to have a new toy! :-)

On Saturday, another fun last minute decision - the plan was to go to the grocery store as a family but when Amy called and said that the library was having a story time at 11, Noah and I decided that Daddy could handle the grocery store alone and we'd go to storytime! :-)

Storytime with Stella Dot

At noon, Waylon went to watch the state game at our friends' house and I stayed home while Noah napped. When Noah woke up, we joined Waylon over there and got to hang out with everyone for a while. Around 5:30, we headed home to meet Waylon's childhood friend, Steven, who was passing through town on his way home to Greensboro. He stayed the night and to give them time to 'bond', I decided to head back to our friends Josh and Anise's house - they were all still hanging out from the game!

Don't they look like brothers?!

On Sunday, a few more errands and I did my 2.75 mile run! Tomorrow, I'll do 3 miles which pretty much makes me ready for the 5K on Dec 6th. By the way, if anyone would like to make a donation to the Arthritis Foundation, feel free to visit my website and support my run, too!

Anyway, Sunday afternoon we had a party for Waylon's dad's 60th birthday! They came over along with Andrea, Sean and Savannah. We were originally going to go to their house but since we have the NFL Season Ticket package, Waylon wanted them to come here, so he could watch the Redskins game! :-) So they were nice enough to pack up everything and bring it to our house. It was so fun to see Savannah again... she's changing so much these days. And Noah had the best time playing with everyone - especially the birthday boy! Dick (Waylon's dad) made a train out of crates and toys and all sorts of things and pulled Noah around for so long. What a fun night!

Riding Grandaddy's train

Loving Aunt Andrea and Cousin Savannah

Playing hide and seek with Grandad

Savannah is finally old enough to use Noah's jumperoo!
Happy Birthday Grandad!After everyone left, we were getting ready to put Noah to bed and were finishing cleaning up the kitchen when we realized that he was eerily quiet... this is how we found him! :-)

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! We sure have a lot to be thankful for... here's one example (you know me and the messy face pics!). :-)

Another Weekend in MD

Last Wednesday night, Noah and I jetted off to MD! I was pretty nervous about the flight but it went great! I always worry so much about how he's going to adapt to new situations and he always does great... I need to just accept the fact that he's perfect! Haha. :-) Anyway, while at the airport waiting for the flight to leave, we happened to run into a friend from middle school who also lives in the Raleigh area (who I hadn't seen in forever!). She was also flying home for the weekend, so it worked perfectly and she really helped out with keeping up with him/carrying stuff/etc. We were flying Southwest, so we were also able to sit together. The flight wasn't full, so we actually had an extra seat between the two of us to spread out and let Noah sit when he wanted. Like I said, he did great... I gave him his pacifier to help with the pressure in his ears and he was totally silent the whole time. He almost started to fall asleep but then the plane touched down and he started clapping! Everyone on the flight was very complimentary about how good he was!

Laura and Noah on the plane

On Thursday, my sister, Leah (Aunt Ditter) came out to hang out with us and we went to the mall in the morning and then Leah and I went and got manicures while Noah was napping.

Watching a children's event at the Columbia Mall

Playing with the pots and pans back at home

Thursday evening, my friend Julie and our family friends Roz and Duane (pretty much my aunt and uncle) came over for dinner and to visit Noah.

Roz and Duane playing with Noah

Reading with Aunt Julie

Friday was a low key day... we went back to another mall just to get out of the house and just relaxed in the afternoon (stipulation - we didn't have many afternoons as Noah napped from 1-4 almost every day!!).


While we were at the mall, my mom and I got Noah some new clothes and one of them was a shirt that is very similar to my Dad's - let me tell you, these two are buddies - each morning when Noah came out of his room, he immediately started yelling, "PAPA!?!"

Playing tent - REAL tent this time! :-)

Waylon left Raleigh after work on Friday and got to MD around 9 or so. Noah was so excited to see Waylon when he got up Saturday - and vice versa! Saturday was a huge day... we had our annual 'Christmas' with my dad's side of the family. It was so good to see everyone! We usually do it Thanksgiving weekend but since we were in town, we switched it to earlier. We have a huge seafood feast and it was so yummy and fun!

Holding hands with Hope.
This was right after Hope walked in - we thought they were going to be good buddies and then Hope saw food and said to Noah, 'I don't have TIME,' and pulled her hand away! :-)

Playing football with cousinsOh yeah, Christmas is going to be FUN!

Playing with Aunt Marie

On Sunday morning, we were just relaxing at the house when we started to try to think of a fun 'activity' for the morning. We decided on going down to DC just for a few hours. We went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and just looked around for a short time (we'll definitely have to go back soon) and had lunch there before heading home for another long nap for Noah.



While Noah was napping, my parents got ready for our tailgate! :-) My dad made us wings and my mom made us cookies and hot chocolate! Noah woke up in just enough time for us to say goodbye and then we headed out to pick up Tina and Tesh (Tina is a friend of mine from Middle/High School). We took all our goodies and grilled out sausages before the game. It was SOOO cold!! Unfortunately, the outcome of the game wasn't great but we still had a lot of fun.



We got home pretty late last night so we took our time getting out of town this morning. We didn't get back here unil 6:00 so it was a quick dinner and some play time and the Noah was off to bed. We are relaxing now and getting ready to get back into our week tomorrow.

Another exhausting but fun weekend......