Thanksgiving Weekend (click here for more photos)

Thanksgiving weekend was a whirlwind trip to Northern Virginia to visit friends and family. We left Raleigh at 4am on Thursday, and got to Chris's parents house around 8am. Thanksgiving Day was spent with Chris's family - 10 adults, 10 kids and 4 dogs! It was a lot of fun....the cousins had a blast playing with each other....and the dogs enjoyed some great table scraps!

On Friday morning Chris's sisters, his mom and I headed out at 5:30am for some Black Friday deals. We hit four stores, got a lot of Christmas shopping done, and headed home just as the kids were waking up and having breakfast.

Shortly thereafter, we hit the road for our NOVA tour....First stop was a visit and lunch with Brian, Brandy and Zoe Loomis. It's amazing how big Zoe is getting...we hadn't seen her in quite a few months (she's almost 10 months old now and is on the move!). Our second stop was to the Johnson's for playtime and dinner. It was great to catch up, and the kids had fun playing together in the basement.

(back) Nate, Keira, Reese, Abby

(front) Ethan, Liam, Chelsea

The final stop of the night was a visit to the Maletick's. Regina looks great (she's due December 25th) and we took a peak at the nursery. The kids had a blast with the dogs. Actually I'm not sure who had more fun...the dogs or the kids! They played fetch, tag and climbed in and out of the crates (the kids!) for nearly 2 hours. Which was great because they were entertained while we caught up with Chris and Regina. After a long day we headed back to Chris's parents for some much needed sleep!

Saturday we went out to lunch with my aunt Barb and cousins (Deb, Brian, Haley, Kylan, Tessa and Ethan) at a local vineyard where my cousin Jen was working. Keira was a little cranky at first (she was still recouperating from the days before!)...but she finally warmed up and had a good time with her cousins in the playroom. (yes, every winery should have a playroom adjacent to the tasting room!) After lunch we headed back to the house to watch the second half of the VT/UVA game (GO HOKIES!).

After dinner on Saturday we drove home and enjoyed sleeping in our own beds Saturday night. But we were back on tour on Sunday, as my grandmother was in town. So we met up for brunch with she and Raleigh locals cousin Maggie and aunt Linda. We had a nice visit, and the kids took 3 hour naps when we got home...so Chris and I enjoyed a nice (quiet!!) Sunday afternoon.

We had a great whirlwind tour, and we thoroughly enjoyed visiting with friends and family....but we are so thankful to be spending Christmas at home this year!!

Growing boy!

Liam had his 15-month check up today. The tubes are doing their job, and he's doing great overall. He weighed in at 29 lbs 7 oz and 33 inches (which is the 95th percentile for both). That's up almost 3 1/2 lbs and 3 inches from his one year checkup!! Which explains why he's eating us out of house and home....

Liam gets tubes

Poor Liam has been on antibiotics for back-to-back ear infections since his first birthday (that's over two months straight!). After trying four different antibiotics, and nothing working, we went to visit an ENT. We saw the ENT on Friday, and Monday morning Liam was in surgery (talk about fast!). We were lucky he had an opening so quickly, and Liam is now a new man. The doctor said there was a lot of fluid and puss in his ears, so it was good we had the tubes put in. He's been talking a lot more this week, and falling considerably less...so we can already tell he's hearing better and the tubes are working. Liam was great at the hospital, he had fun playing peek-a-boo around the curtain in our waiting room, and flirting with the nurses.

Halloween Weekend

The weekend started with the Halloween parade at daycare....Keira was Dora and Liam was a fireman. It was a lot of fun to see all of the kids dressed up...I love Halloween!! After the parade we went home, grabbed a quick dinner and headed out trick-or-treating. We went to the first house and Keira was a little timid and not quite sure what was going on. But our neighbor Miranda gave her a piece of candy and she turned around and screamed "next house!"....so she figured it out pretty quickly. Liam rode in the wagon, and after we hit the houses on our street, Chris and Liam headed home to hand out candy to the other kids. Keira wasn't done yet, so she and I went down a few more streets. She was exhausted, but was having so much fun, she just kept saying "next house!" and kept going. Funny thing is, she really didn't care about the candy, she just loved the trick-or-treating part of it. Her favorite houses were the ones that had play-dough, crayons or stickers in the bowl...she'd pick those over candy every time. And she didn't eat any candy, all she wanted was raisins when we got home! Liam was too young this year to understand, but I really don't think we'll get off as easy next year with him!

The day after Halloween, the farm down the street had an Open House so we went to go see the animals (there's a recurring theme with our weekends...Keira is in love with animals these days!). The kids got to pet and feed the goats, a rabbit and a chicken. There was also a moon bounce which of course Keira had a blast on.

There are a ton of photos on Snapfish from our Halloween/Fall festivies...click on the blog title to see them all.

Getting ready for Halloween

In order to get ready for Halloween, we made cookies and carved pumpkins last week. Keira was not so sure about the pumpkin guts last year, but this year she got in there and got her hands dirty. Of course Liam dug right in! After the kids went to bed, Chris and I carved the pumpkins....his was a skull and mine was the Count.

Trip to New York

I went to New York on business at the end of October to work two trade shows. My friend Christine came up to attend one of the shows and stayed with me. It was great to spend time with her in the evenings and catch up. We wandered around after dinner one night and just had to sit on the new red bleachers in Times Square. At the time (after a few Guinesses at a nearby Irish bar) it didn't seem so corny!

Visit to the State Fair

The weekend of October 18th we visited the State Fair in downtown Raleigh. The kids had fun looking at all of the animals. Keira held a chick (which pooped on her hand and freaked her out) and we all had fun feeding the goats carrots at the petting zoo. We stopped to say hi to cousin Maggie who was working at the turkey shoot (don't worry, there weren't real turkeys there!) and the kids had their first cotton candy. Next year they will be a little older and will be able to go on the rides...but this year we just stuck to the animals. (Click on the blog post title for more photos on Snapfish)

Having fun at the UNC Kids zone.