Thanksgiving!

It was hard to go back to work today coming off of a very good Thanksgiving weekend! I took the day off on Wednesday and spent the entire day home playing with my 2 favorite little boys. A few months ago, the idea of me, alone, against the two of them, for an entire day... it made me break out in hives, but somewhere along the way we have gotten into our groove, Henry has gotten easier to hold with one arm, John Dickson has, dare I say, passed the terrible twos stage, and our days are fabulorific. (Its my blog, I'll make up words if I want to).

Aaaanyway, when Adam (or "Adam" as John Dickson likes to call him) got home from work, we made our way down to Columbia for dinner with my family. The next morning we got up before 7, fixed our Thanksgiving contributions, showered, and got out the door - on time! Ahhhh the beauty of grandparents and their amazing help.

We spent the day at Lake Wateree with all of Adam's family, playing darts, horseshoes, corn hole and Wii, followed by watching the sun set on a boat - John Dickson was in heaven! He even got to drive the boat - what a big boy! Adam's grandma, Bobbie, was on my team for the games, and she spent half the time snuggling our younger munchkin and the other half kicking everybody's tails in darts and Wii. It was quite impressive! Anyway, the food was all amazing and we had a great time.

Henry was so excited, he passed out.

When we got back that night, we went next door for Henry to see his awesome godparents, Betsy & Brandon, and have dessert part II. I nearly popped. Henry was a grumpus - it was a good hour past his bedtime, but I swear Brandon is like the baby whisperer. He should probably be glad they don't live close by.

Adam and I consider ourselves brave, but on Thursday night, we braved the unthinkable - Toys R Us on Black Friday. That, my friends, is how much we love our kids. The line went entirely around the parking lot, wrapped around the store, and then went pretty much all the way out to Columbiana Drive. After the store opened, it took us an hour just to get inside. When we left 2.5 hours after it opened, there was still a line outside of people waiting to get in. The line to pay snaked through half the store. Not only did we not expect to get what we wanted - we didn't expect the store to have any merchandise AT ALL, but somehow we left with what we went for. Mission accomplished.

On Saturday morning we went to Costco to get our Christmas tree. We didn't see the trees outside, so we went on in and did a little shopping. When we checked out, we found out we had to pay for the tree inside, so we did and went outside to pick it out. Then we realized why we didn't see the trees - there were 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. And they were all wrapped up. It wasn't quite the tree buying experience we had envisioned, but we selected the fattest one and threw her in the truck. John Dickson insisted that we point the rear view mirror down so that he could look at the tree in the back of the truck as we drove. Now, at Halloween, we are all about a Charlie Brown pumpkin. At Christmas, Charlie Brown isn't quite what we were going for, but its grown on us (not literally...). As our ornament collection is still young, our tree doesn't look quite as bare when it is so small, and I thought that FINALLY I would have a properly lit tree. It turns out 700 lights just isnt enough for any size tree. Note to self: must buy more lights. And perhaps a fire extinguisher.

I'd say John Dickson loves his Christmas tree - he left to go to Winston Salem for 5 nights (holy cow!!!) and when I told him I would miss him, he replied "I gonna miss my Christmas tree." Oh well, I'd much prefer that to him having separation anxiety - he does love his grandparents! In the meantime, Henry is eating up being an only child, and our house is insanely quiet. We do miss our little boy!!!!