Happy Thanksgiving!

We've had a great thanksgiving so far! Even though we've traveled through some bad weather to get here. We finished up our work early yesterday to try and travel through the warmest part of the day. It snowed and spit ice the whole way home even though the roads were fairly clear.

We got home yesterday and hung out with some family and woke up this morning to a white thanksgiving! It's been a cold, cold day but one filled with lots of laughter and happiness. We started out with lunch at my parents and then made our way up to Dillon's grandma's house. 

I've got lots of pictures today, so I'll post some today and then I'm sure I'll have a few more by the end of the weekend as we'll be spending more time with our families and getting our Christmas tree on Sunday. 

We are so thankful for all that God has given us. Our home, our families, our healthy baby, our pups, and our very full bellies this evening. I hope everyone has had a great holiday! 

Mom and dad found some of my old toys that are "baby friendly" for Luke to play with

Luke plays with toys and watches "Gone with the Wind"

We didn't bring a highchair, so we had to brave the snow last night and get a booster seat at WalMart

What it looked like this morning

Hey, Dill.

The before lunch spread

The star of the dinner

Dinner at mom and dad's

Luke meets Cory for the first time!

Jordyn and her piggies!

Everyone helps Luke eat!

Luke says "Hey, Poppaw Eddie!"

Luke and Jordyn love thanksgiving! Next year they'll be chasing each other!

Hugs!

Glenda shows me her stiches

Reading books

All of Granny Blanche's grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great -grandchild!

Granny B. is carried to her photo!

Now let's all be serious...

Kenz and me

Winter!

Winter is here, yuck. It's been so cold today that we only left the house to go to church and lunch. I've done, oh, about 4 loads of laundry today and all of the clean laundry put up, which almost never happens in this house! So I'm feeling pretty good about our productive Sunday.

Yesterday we went Christmas shopping in Gaffney, SC and got most of our shopping done. Only a few more things to purchase and we'll be set! I try to get most of the Christmas shopping done before the madness of the season sets in. Our house is in a most inconvenient spot here in town so we're constantly battling traffic after Thanksgiving. I try to stay in the house as much as I can before Christmas to avoid dealing with crazy shoppers. 

This week, we have a short work week that we're all looking forward to! We're supposed to go to VA this week, but I'm worried about the weather. I even asked Dillon if I should buy a small turkey in case we get snowed in and can't travel. He has confidence that we can make it so I'm trusting in his driving abilities! 

We'll come back after Thanksgiving and get our tree! Next week's post will have lots of pictures of family and tree trimming I'm sure. I tried to convince Dill to get our tree this weekend, but he was adamant that we wait until AFTER Thanksgiving. What a scrooge! :) 

Dinner with the Sullivans Friday night. Luke loved hanging out with them and singing a song about putting his socks in the bean dip.

We went to Highland Brewery last night to hang out with some friends and try some Cold Mountain beer. Luke loved the live music and watching the other kids run around.

Ready for church this morning... these little overalls are sized 12 months!

Bath time fun the other night!

Happiness!

He loves his daddy!

7 Months!

I know that you'll forgive me for writing his seven month post a day early. Tomorrow I'm traveling to an office an hour away and on top of everything else, don't know that I'll have much time to write this post before the end of the week! 

Tomorrow Luke is 7 months old! What a whirlwind... I can't believe how fast it's all gone by and it seems like a blur. This month, Luke weighs around 18 pounds building up my muscles and is -> <- this close to crawling. He gets his butt up in the air and last night moved forward the slightest before falling. I'd say by the end of the week he'll be crawling around our house which means I need to get to baby proofing. He still has no teeth which is really disheartening. I just don't understand how much long he can go without teeth, he'll be 15 eating mashed up foods! He's sitting up on his own now, something that came on basically overnight. Somehow, he can just balance himself although there are sometimes when he topples still. Today at lunch he bumped his head on the table and has a little bruise in between his eyes. :(

It's hard to think that 7 months ago, we were thinking about going to the hospital and within the next 24 hours, Luke would be here with us. Sometimes I feel like he's been with us forever and sometimes it's like a blink of an eye. I can barely remember what our lives were like before him (more sleep and free time, maybe I do remember, but I wouldn't change it for anything!) What a happy little fellow we have and you'll see below how mobile and fast moving he is now.

Little Luke on his first day of life.

One month old...

Three months old, right before I went back to work.

5 months old

And now 7 months old... you'll see I couldn't really get him to sit still for a good picture!

Please excuse the drool. It's unmanageable these days and causes an awful rash on his chin and neck :( 

Why'd you take my toy away!? Notice where he smudged all the information

How we spent the afternoon... I still feel pooey and good ole Dillon made some homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner.

Love the cuddles! Even from the dogs.

Pre-Holiday Lull

I haven't posted in awhile, only because we really haven't been doing much other than gearing up for Thanksgiving & Christmas. Once Thanksgiving hits, we'll be on the go, go, go! 

Santa has received Lucas' wish list and delivered some of the presents for me to wrap already. I'm getting so pumped up for his first Christmas and I don't think I've felt this excited since I was a kid! 

We've all had a little bit of a rough week with Dillon being out of town and Luke and I being sick. I went to pick him up from daycare Thursday and he'd yacked all over the place and was acting tired and like he didn't feel well. He had a fever in the evening and surprise, surprise, I woke up the next morning with a sore throat. Thankfully, Dillon's on his way home tonight, a whole day early and I think the baby and I are getting better (*fingers crossed*)

I'm hoping his teeth are FINALLY coming through. Holy cow, he's been drooly and grumpy and chewing on everything. Every day I check to see if they've broken through yet. And this evening he took his first moves towards crawling. I think it may happen within the next week or so. We had to lower his pack n play yesterday because he's trying to pull up. Gah, I can't believe that he's making all these developments so quickly and so soon. Wasn't he just born last week?! :( 

These pictures are all from my phone. We haven't had much chance to take photos with our camera and we've just been staying home for the most part. The first holidays are coming up soon, though, and I'm sure photo opportunities will abound! 

This is a video of Luke trying to eat those puffs that everyone says their kids just LOVE, which he doesn't. :P I thought at one point he was going to eat it straight down since I was videoing but his reaction at the end is what we usually see. I've tried feeding him sweet potatoes, regular potatoes and other "real" foods and he usually gets this awful look and just gags it back out. Have other people with babies experienced this?

How most of our time is spent. Trying to keep him from grabbing sharp items.

Thankfully, dad saves the day.

Hey, ma. This water stuff is pretty tasty.

Lola cuts in on the photo shoot

Nightly pictures to dad while he's in Florida

Please let this be the day his teeth come through. AHHHH.

Luke's first craft!