Giving thanks and a Ho, Ho, Ho.

Last week we traveled to Nashville where we spent a couple of days visiting friends before heading to Tulsa for Thanksgiving. It was really great to see our friends Ryan and Kari who are expecting a baby in February. Josiah gave them a taste of the future when he pooped in their bathtub. My dear pregnant friend got out of having to scrub her tub in the near future, because Josiah obligated me to it. I am more grateful than ever for the blow up tub. The drama didn't end there. On Tuesday morning Jonathan was taking our luggage out to the car and Josiah was upstairs with me while I scurried around getting the last items together. He walked off and about 10 seconds later I thought to myself, "I don't know if Jonathan shut the door to the stairs." I blasted through their kitchen and as I was about to turn the corner to the stairs I heard a distinct tumble down the stairs. I rounded the corner in time to watch Josiah roll down the last three stairs or so. Jonathan heard the commotion and came running in from outside. Jonathan scooped him up and he luckily didn't have much more than a really scary experience. There was a small red mark above his eye that disappeared within the day. We are still unable to determine how far he made it down the stairs before falling, because it didn't sound like he fell down all of them. We were INCREDIBLY grateful that the stairs were cushioned really well with carpet. Of course his love for stairs isn't phased at all by the incident.

We headed to Tulsa on Tuesday morning via airplane, and since we left before dawn, Josiah was sleepy and slept on BOTH flights. I was extremely grateful for that. I am not sure how we would have managed otherwise. This year at Thanksgiving my cousin taught me how to bake pies from scratch---and we did. We made peach, pumpkin, pecan, candy bar, and apple. The crowning glory was our apple pie that had 4 1/2 lbs of apples in it. I promise it was the best apple pie ever made. Here we are with the pie before putting it in the oven.



I didn't manage to take more photos after that, as I was busy putting together puzzles, playing cards, and drinking my weight in Dr. Pepper--all Thanksgiving traditions in our family. Josiah had a blast playing with all of the family members. He didn't like sleeping in a strange place, so most nights he ended up in bed with us. He would be dead asleep and as soon as either of us would lay him down in the playpen he would burst into tears. He seemed quite relieved when I put him down in his own crib last night. We were fearful what life would look like when we returned home because he got so off schedule while we were there. Surprisingly, he has returned to his normal schedule without a hitch.

Today we went to pick our Christmas tree. It was incredibly cold outside, very appropriate for December 1st and very unusual in Atlanta. For the last two years it has been in the 70s right before Christmas.



We chose our tree and came home to decorate it. Midway through the decoration process I thought to myself, "I don't think I am making much progress," as Josiah was pulling off everything I put on the tree. He loved the lights...then the garland...then the ornaments. I was very conscience of putting "baby friendly" ornaments on the bottom. It didn't take me long to realize Josiah could reach higher than I initially anticipated, so the bottom of the tree got emptier and emptier as I moved ornaments to higher ground. He was after the ball ornaments, and even though they claim to be shatter-proof, I still don't trust him with the little green hooks. All of the accessible ornaments to him have ribbons. I have pretty much concluded that the bottom ring of lights and garland will just have to suffer through the season being pulled out of place and then put back each day. This evening I anchored the tree on both sides to the curtain drawbacks with fishing line in hopes of preventing any major catastrophes.





I took the absolute cutest video EVER of Josiah this evening. Please check it out. May the joy of Christ's birth fill your lives as this season begins! Also check out the blog below, also posted tonight, for pictures from our weekend in the mountains!