Thanksgiving Trip-Part One

This Thanksgiving was so much fun! It was also A LOT busier for us than last year. Last year, Eli was only 3 weeks old on Thanksgiving Day, so traveling out of town was out of the question for us. We spent the day with Josh's family here in town and our new little man didn't get to enjoy any of the yummy Thanksgiving treats.

This year though, Josh and I were both off of work for the entire week, so we decided to go visit his Dad and brother and to also visit my family for Thanksgiving. We left Sunday afternoon and after a 6 hour drive arrived at Josh's dad's house. Eli did great on the way there. I'm so proud and THANKFUL for how well he travels in the car. He mostly sleeps, but when he wakes up he'll usually sit and listen to music, listen to me read him a book, and watch Praise Baby. We try not to use Praise Baby all the time because we don't want him to get used to always having it on in the car. We only use it when he gets a little grumpy and needs to settle down a little bit.

We got to Grandpa E's house very late, but Eli had done some sleeping in the car so after about an hour of exerting energy, he went down for the night. Josh and I followed behind him very soon afterward. We knew that we were going to have a busy week, so sleep was very important.

We got up early the next morning and got ready to shop till we dropped...literally! When you live in a small town like we do, you have to make the most of every opportunity when you go out of town. Grandpa E had meetings all morning, so the three of us headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant in Texas-Chipotle. It's wonderful and we try to go there every time we're visiting Grandpa E. It was a fun experience for us, too, because this was the first restaurant that we'd been to where we got to order a meal for Eli off the kid's menu. He got a cheese quesadilla, rice and beans. He ate some of the quesadilla, but wouldn't touch the rice or beans. He had lots of fun hamming it up for all the people in the restaurant though. He's quite the character these days! :)

Hmmm, what should I order?

Spotting his Daddy over his shoulder...so sweet!

We left the restaurant and went to the best outlet mall ever...Grapevine Mills. If you're familiar with Dallas, then you know traffic can be a mess, so to help pass the time, Eli looked at his book Polar Bear, Polar Bear (still his one of his all time favorites!) We got to Grapevine Mills and we found so much stuff there and were able to get lots of Christmas presents for people on our list. Pretty soon though, little man had had enough and we made our way back to Grandpa E's house.




When we got there, Ian, Josh's brother, was there waiting for us. Ian had not see Eli since the day he was born, so he was so surprised at how big Eli had gotten. We spent some time with Ian, but pretty soon, it was time for bed. We were going to have another busy and eventful day so we needed our rest!

Josh, Eli, and Ian

What Baby Wants, Baby Gets (with the grandparents, of course!)

This past Sunday, Eli was dedicated at our church (that post is coming!). Mom and Dad (Grammy and Pop) drove in Saturday morning to be here for that special time. Eli had just fallen asleep when they arrived, but, in true form, he was up and ready to play in 30 minutes :) He just needed a little bit of recharging, I guess.

Grammy and Pop brought Eli his very own cell phone. He was very excited about that. Now he can call Grammy whenever he wants to and not have to wait on Mommy.

Running the cell phone through the taste test....It passed!

Call 1-800-GRAMMY!

Eli had a great time playing with Mom and Dad. He showed off all his new skills-crawling and pulling up-to them and earned lots of praises and smiles. Soon he was tired of all the crawling and pulling up and wanted to have some cuddle time with Grammy. Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? is one of his favorite books right now. He picked that one out and he and Grammy read it together.

After story time, Grammy and Pop decided they wanted to buy Eli a baby pool so he could have fun splishing and splashing in his very own backyard. We went to the store and came back 30 minutes later with this cute inflatable pool. This wasn't what we were looking for, but we are definitely glad we went with the inflatable kind because he loves to bump his head against things these days!

Notice his hand in the grass. He LOVES grass!

Checking out the grass again...

Getting splashed by Grammy
Every time someone splashed him, he'd suck in his breath and gasp.

Smiling up at his Daddy

Looking for Maggie, our golden retriever.

He LOVES Maggie these days. His favorite thing to do is to look out the windows of our French doors to see Maggie on the patio.

Daddy didn't really understand the purpose behind these caterpillar stacking cups, but Eli loved chewing on them!

Thanks Grammy and Pop for all the fun stuff you bought Eli this weekend. He's going to get lots of use out of all of it!