Thanksgiving & Birthdays

Well, we left bright and early Monday morning heading for Muscle Shoals. Hayden went back with my parents on Sunday, so it was just me, Dave and Livee for the car trip. That made it significantly easier for some reason. hmmmm.... Monday night we celebrated Brandon, Gwen, and Dave's birthdays (all in November) and Thanksgiving. It was a delicious feast of turkey, chicken, dressing, green bean casserole, corn, purple hull peas, mashed potatoes, marinated carrots, congealed salad, cranberry sauce, and homemade birthday cake!

Note Dave's T-Shirt. Uggghhh-I need to burn it.

Man, do we know how to eat!!! Tuesday Dave headed back to Georgia to work and the rest of us stayed in the Shoals for the week. The plan was to head back Sunday and stop in Calera for our Polar Express ride, but some dummy (ummmm ME) booked the wrong date so we do that next Sunday. The rest of the week was pretty non-descript. I got together with some of my oldest friends for coffee- Leanna, Brad and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is expecting her 2nd, so that was exciting! And Leanna and Brad are doing great in San Diego as well. The little newlyweds celebrate their 1st anniversary in December. Wednesday evening I got to see my aunt and uncle and cousin and her boys for yet another delicious Thanksgiving meal. On Thursday, we went over to my grandparents and ate homemade veggie soup. All in all, I think I gained 5 pounds. I guess I'm just too well taken care of when I'm at my parents. :)

Aren't these the saddest faces you've ever seen? They were so very tired.

Church Dedication

Let's back up to Sunday, November 22nd. At our church, Midway Macedonia Baptist, we dedicated Livee and Hayden to be brought up in a Godly home, with Christ as the center of it. We were so grateful to start our week of Thanksgiving in this way. We didn't get a very good picture of the four of us, but I'll post it anyway. We LOVE our church and our LifeGroup class if I haven't mentioned it before. It has been great to be able to connect with people our own age and make new friends. Our parents and one grandparent were able to come to the dedication and eat lunch with us afterwards at a local Greek restaurant. Yum! No important event is right if food isn't involved!

Thanksgiving Feast at Preschool

At Hayden's preschool they have a Thanksgiving Feast to celebrate the coming holiday. The 3's and 4's sing a few songs and then they get to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal while all of the parents gush over how precious their children are. Seriously, these kids worked on this for 2 weeks. They made all of the placemats, center pieces, and costumes! Hayden loves his preschool this year and I am so thankful that God placed all of the people in my life that he did at just the right time so that I could find it. Last year we had a bad experience and were thoroughly disappointed, but this year things have definitely turned around!

Hayden is the second from the left standing up (in yellow). Make sure you look at the kid to the far right (in yellow) with his ears plugged. Ha!

Helping Out

Hayden is such a big helper these days. He helped me empty all of the ketchup packets tonight, for instance. Here he is helping Dave blow leaves off of the back patio.

Outside Pictures

We were outside today enjoying the beautiful weather and snapped some pics!

4 Month Stats

Had our doctor's visit this morning and Livee is 11 lbs, 8 oz and 24 inches long. She is a bean pole! They weren't too concerned with her weight since she gained 2 inches, but we are still going ahead with food. I am baking sweet potatoes for her as we speak. She really enjoyed the banana yesterday and the day before, but I don't want any constipation issues, so I am skipping rice cereal for now and moving on to a veggie. I am attempting to make homemade baby food, mainly because I HATE paying for little jars of food when I can make a whole ice cube tray full for the same price. I can also add what I want to it. I am taking a few short cuts, in that I bought frozen steam fresh peas, frozen butternut squash, a huge jar of natural applesauce, and the sweet potatoes in the plastic that you can microwave. Whatever I can do, right? I have some fresh carrots so I may cook those tomorrow and freeze them for later. In the mean time, the house is a wreck with Christmas decoration boxes everywhere and a halfway finished tree, but the baby comes first! She had 2 shots and an oral vaccine, so I expect her to sleep most of the day. Here is an exhausted pic of her.

4 Months Old!

Livee is four months old, yay! She will be visiting the doctor on Thursday for her checkup and shots. She is so alert these days. She's still breastfeeding every 3 to 4 hours and sleeping all night, but napping sporadically. She watches everything we do with fascination, including eating, so tonight I gave her a little bit of banana. I don't know if I'm ready to go down the baby food road quite yet, but she seemed to enjoy it and gobbled it right up! We'll see in the next few days. We got out her exersaucer a couple of days ago and she is really enjoying it.

She's reaching for things and is getting good at playing with her paci. She also coos and squeals a lot and loves to kick. I have to say, I love this baby age because they really start engaging a lot more. She smiles at everyone who talks to her and is really pretty quiet while we're out doing things. This past Sunday she had her first experience in the nursery and didn't sleep at all. She is so nosey! The benefit for me, though, was that she took 2 really good naps when we got home!

Hayden’s Adventures With Tommy!

After leaving school on Friday, Hayden introduced Tommy to his family. Tommy rested on the couch with Hayden and his daddy and his little sister Livee. Hayden and Tommy watched TV and played until they went to bed.

On Saturday they went to Chick-Fil-A. Tommy tried to ride in the front of the car on the dashboard, but Hayden let him ride in his seat with him instead. They ate lunch and played on the playground. Tommy was just the right size to play. He went really fast down the slide!

That night Hayden and Tommy got to go trick-or-treating. Hayden dressed up as Spiderman and Tommy dressed up as a ghost. When they got home, they helped Hayden's mommy and daddy hand out candy to the other trick-or-treaters. Everyone loved Tommy's costume!

On Sunday, Hayden took Tommy to church with him. He had fun in the Zebra class learning about Jesus.

Hayden and Tommy also went to a birthday party for Hayden's friend Layton. Tommy loved seeing all of the birthday gifts!

Hayden and Tommy had a very busy and exciting weekend together. They can't wait for their next adventure!