Since my SIL and nephews came later in the day; Thanksgiving kind of became the “Grayson Show”. No…seriously. Watch this video my dad made from Thanksgiving this year. It is literally 90% Grayson’s face. His cousins make an appearance towards the end of the video.
My apologies to those of you who are not interested in random videos of a toddler laughing into a video camera. He was just too funny in this video, not to post it.
I hope everyone enjoyed lots and lots of turkey, tofurkey, or turducken today. Since I was a total slacker and finally finished putting my fall mantle together yesterday I made sure to take a photo of it. I’ve been so busy these past few weeks with holiday photo sessions, people love their photo holiday cards…I know I do, and editing non-stop I haven’t had much time to make my mantle look all purdy-like.
Luckily, I made that wreath during October or else it would never have been finished. I love how it turned out. I was able to reuse many pieces from my Halloween mantle and the other decor was just grabbed from around the house. So, this bad boy was F, to the R, to the E-E!!!
I figured I would take the few spare minutes I had to myself yesterday to make it look pretty, because who knows how long it will take me to get our Christmas decor up.
Well, I’m off to eat some pie and a second helping of turkey. Peace.
And here we go. The top 10 reasons I’m thankful for Grayson…
1. Firsts! Experiencing your 1st child’s firsts is truly amazing. Although he might not realize the significance of these seemingly everyday activities they are precious moment to us.
2. Baby Mullets…
3. Improved reflexes. My reflexes have increased exponentially. At first you have a knee jerk reaction to every move your child makes because you are overly cautious about him/her getting hurt. As your child grows up those reactions reflexes are still there to protect your child from harm, but also to protect carpets from juice stains, TV’s from being smacked with toys, little hands from dunking your keys in the dog’s water bowl, etc. With all this practice a child gives your reflexes you can’t help but get better and better. Maybe I should give juggling another shot with my now increased hand-eye coordination. Check this dad’s super stellar reflexes in action. He snatches his baby up with in millimeters of her face hitting the ground. Dang!
4. Every time I see him learn something new I become so proud that all I want to do is teach him more and more so that he never feels inferior or not given the proper tools to succeed in life. We may not be able to send him to the best private school or have a bouncy house in our back yard, but the one thing we can always give him is knowledge.
5. He reminds us how wonderful it is to experience new things. Every time I hear him utter “Ohhhh!!!” or “wow, wow, wow” I melt in to a giant puddle of mommy goo.
6. This child has never met a person that he didn’t like instantly. It’s wonderful to see him walk up to a total stranger and bear hug them like they are a long lost friend. He loves people no matter what they might look like, sound like, how they dress, or even if they have spinach stuck between their teeth. He really makes me think about 1st impressions I might get of a person I just met, and how we all should be so free of judgement.
7. He keeps us grounded. Seeing that beautiful toothy smile, and feeling his little arms wrap around your neck reminds you that work, money, and status isn’t everything. Family is. Although having a child during these hard economic times is hard in itself, having a “family” helps remind us that as long as we have each other there is no obstacle we can’t overcome. And believe me, we have had many around here lately.
9. They look adorable in costumes.
10. Plain and simple…he makes me smile.
Here is the pecan pie I made. I didn’t have enough time to let my crust set up because I cooked it the morning of. I forgot that it has to be refrigerated for at least an hour before rolling it out.
Geeez Jen, how could you make such a rookie mistake?!? It still tasted wonderful. It was just the presentation that was lacking.
Ya’ll’ve (wow! a double contraction….NICE) seen my Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie so I didn’t take a picture of it this time.
And here are just some pictures of the fun we had that day. This is my nephew, I call him JD, but his name is Jerry. What a face!!! Love this kid.
I don’t know if it is like this in every family, but the guys in mine are Deviled Egg-aholics. It’s bad!
This is what the tray looked like in the 1st 3 minutes…yup, it was full. We made them promise not to eat anymore until dinner started. To make certain they each got two more; the boys decided they should be in charge of egg distribution for the remainder of the evening. I was the Deviled Egg moderator.
My in-laws came over to celebrate with my family, and that always makes for great conversation. After dinner, due to a lingering sinus headache, I went upstairs and passed out for like 2.5 hours while the guys all played Call of Duty :: Modern Warfare 2.
It was a wonderful Thanksgiving.
I am thankful for my loving and amazing husband, my two precious pup pups, and my family…both new and old.
