Thanksgiving in North Georgia

This year, we headed to Dan's parents' house in Sautee, GA for Thanksgiving.  But because of the rock slide (or should I say 'boulder' slide?) on I-40 between Knoxville and Asheville, we had to go a different way.  That section of I-40 is closed for several months.  There are several ways to get to Sautee from Knoxville {and we have tried most of them}, but we have determined we prefer going through the mountains on I-40, down to Waynesville, NC, through Dillard, GA, and on to Sautee.  It is mostly 4-lanes so the roads are better and less curvy, and there are more "populated" places to stop for potty breaks, etc.  It's a much more family-friendly way.  Any other way you go involves going over the mountain at some point with lots of ups and downs and way too many curves.  But if we were going to go, we had no choice this time.

We headed out on Thanksgiving late morning, really not that long before Fenn's lunchtime.  We stopped and got him some chicken nuggets from McDonald's (yes, we're parents of the year!) and were on our way.  We were hoping he would eat his lunch and then take his usual "after lunchtime" nap.  Everything was going great until we got into the mountains and the roads started getting curvy.  Fenn had been content to watch Little Einsteins DVDs.  And I had been sitting in the backseat between Fenn and Boone to help keep both of them happy.  But then Fenn started acting funny and had these strange looks on his face.  And he was leaning forward in his seat and seemed like he couldn't get comfortable.  I had suspicions that he was feeling a little car sick.  Then it seemed to go away for a little while.  But that didn't last long.  I'll never forget the look on his face.  It was this horrible look of complete and utter terror.  He had never really thrown up before, at least not in a way that he knew something was about to happen.  The couple of times in the past had happened so suddenly that he really wasn't phased at all.  Once it was over, he acted as if it had never happened.  But this time was different.  This time he could feel something was wrong, but he had no idea what was going on.  I grabbed one of Boone's burp cloths and held it under his chin.  And up came those chicken nuggets!  Luckily, I was able to catch most of it and very little got on Fenn.  While all of this was going on, I was telling Dan to find a place to pull over.  Easier said than done when you're winding through those curvy mountain roads!  We finally found a place where we could pull off the road and got Fenn out of the car for a few minutes.  That gave us a chance to clean him up.  We finally got back on the road and drove for the next hour or so with the windows cracked.  And it was a COLD day!  But we wanted to keep fresh air on Fenn.  We finally got to Grami and Poppy's house with no more problems.  We were exhausted from the trip.  We had a nice Thanksgiving meal, but that's about all I remember from the rest of the day.  I didn't even take out my camera I was so completely exhausted.

On Friday, we hung out around the house.  Piper and Sydney did a great job keeping the boys entertained {especially Fenn}.  He followed them around all over the place.  Boone had fun playing on the floor in the family room with Piper for a while.  Fenn played downstairs in the pop up tent with Piper and Sydney.  We took Fenn down to the pasture to see the horses.  While there, he got to see some deer grazing in the field.  And we took Fenn over to the playground for a little while to burn off some energy.  We didn't stay long because it was so cold.  It was cold enough that when we mentioned something about leaving, Fenn said "okay" and headed to the car! 

That evening, Grami worked on a gingerbread house with Piper, Sydney, Fenn, and Boone.  Fenn was so cute trying to help.  And he kept spilling the candy all over the place.  Poor Piper kept having to pick it all up!  And look at sweet Boone watching!

On Saturday morning, it was time to head home.  It had warmed up significantly outside, so Fenn and the girls started playing in the pile of leaves out front.  Then they discovered they could walk up the hill, run down, and slide into the leaves.  Fenn had a blast! 

We took a few photos of the 4 grandchildren together.  {Too bad we were missing the two Texas grandchildren, Austin and Harrison.}  And we took a few photos of Grami and Poppy with the kids.  We were not looking forward to the trip home after what happened with Fenn on Thursday.  But luckily we made it home without any problems.  No more carsickness!

We had a great time.  It was a short trip since we came home on Saturday.  But it was nice to get home and have a full day home before having to start a new week. 

Odds & Ends from November...

This is going to be one of those blog posts about lots of different things... sort of a hodge-podge of stories and photos from the month of November.

First of all, these are a couple of photos taken while in Birmingham for my brother's wedding.  I posted earlier about how I was disappointed that I didn't take any photos at the wedding.  I was sick, Boone was sick with a high fever all weekend, and all of that led to me being completely exhausted.  On the morning of the wedding, we took Fenn to the park in an effort to wear him out so he would take a nap before the wedding.  This was Fenn's first time to swing in a 'big boy' playground swing (not one of those toddler swings).  {That's Fenn's cousin, Jesse, in the background.}  And this was also Boone's first time in a swing other than the infant swing we have in the house.  Even though he wasn't feeling well, he really liked it.

While in Birmingham, Boone also had his first bath NOT in the infant tub.  He actually got to sit up (assisted by us, of course).  And he loved playing and splashing in the water.

And here are a few photos from Boone's first time in the Johnny Jump Up.  Loved that, too!  He's really funny because he'll push off the floor with his feet close together.  Then on the up-motion, he'll point his toes like a ballerina.  His teachers at school have even commented about how funny it is.  And Fenn likes pushing him in it.

Boone has also started sitting up by himself recently.  I don't have an exact date for the very first time.  But these photos were taken on November 21st and he was just starting to sit up by himself a little.  In fact, we had just had his 6-month photo session on the 20th and he sat up much better and much longer than we expected.

Toward the end of the month, we spent some time in the backyard playing in the leaves daddy had just raked up.  Sorry daddy!  But Fenn had a great time!

And a couple of days ago, Boone ate while sitting in the high chair for the first time.  What a big boy he's becoming! 

Boone at Six Months Old

This is Boone at Six Months. This is the sixth installment in the "12-month onesie" series. He turned 6 months on the 15th, but I decided to wait and do the post this week so I could include the stats from his 6-month check-up today.

These are his stats at 27 weeks (or 6 months) old:
Weight: 18 lbs. 2 oz. (58th %)
Height: 27.25" (74th %)
Head: 43.6 cm (42nd %)

Compare this to his stats at 18 weeks (or 4 months) old:
Weight: 15 lbs. 11.5 oz. (61st %)
Height: 25.5" (65th %)
Head: 41.5 cm (26th %)

Boone has changed a lot over the last month.  Still no teeth, but he continues to drool like crazy and keeps his fingers or whatever else he can get hold of in his mouth most of the time.  And he loves it when I rub his gums.  Something that I think is kind of funny is when I'm changing his diaper and wiping him off with a diaper wipe, he gives me the biggest grin.  I guess he just likes how it feels.  He's been rolling over both from tummy to back and from back to tummy for the last couple of weeks.  And he has even been rolling over and sleeping on his tummy some at night.  Just like with Fenn, it worries me a little, but I'm still letting him do it.  Of course, I do check on him every single time that I wake up at night.  He actually started rolling over in his crib a couple of months sooner than Fenn.  By the time Fenn started doing it, he was already really good at rolling himself back over to his back.  But Boone still hasn't perfected the skill of rolling back over to his back.  He starts screaming if he can't get back over.

Another big change for Boone is that he is sitting up now.  He had started "tripoding" just a couple of weeks ago.  And when sitting up, he would lean forward and then could straighten himself back up pretty good.  But he wasn't really sitting up for any length of time without assistance.  But then last Friday, we took him for his 6-month photo session and he surprised us.  We wanted to get some sitting up photos, but figured we would have to keep our hands within a few inches of him to catch him when he started to fall.  We just knew Rebekah would have to snap a picture or two quickly and then we would have to grab him.  But instead, he sat up for pretty long periods without us having to help him.  He is still pretty wobbly, and he does much better with the Boppy pillow behind him because it gives him something soft to land on if he leans back and falls.  But we are amazed at how quickly he went from not being able to sit up to being able to sit up for as long as 30 or 40 seconds without falling over.  Another thing he is doing is that when he is on his tummy, he pulls his knees up under him and then pushes off with his feet.  He's showing quite a bit of strength when doing that.  And that is what he usually does to get himself to roll over from his tummy to his back.  It makes me wonder if he'll start crawling pretty soon.

In the last two or three days, he has started talking more.  He's doing the "bah bah bah bah bah" thing, with a very exaggerated mouth movement.  It is kind of funny looking because it reminds me of someone trying to talk without their artificial teeth.  And over the weekend, we pulled out the "Johnny Jump Up" and put him in it for the first time.  He loves it and quickly figured out how to make himself bounce up and down.  And last but not least, he officially has his first ear infection right now.  We found out when we took him to the doctor today for his 6-month check up.  His doctor and I were both completely surprised about this finding.  Other than being sick the prior weekend with a virus (that's another story!), he has been acting fine.  We certainly never would have guessed that he had an ear infection.  But when his doctor looked in his left ear, there it was... bright, bright red.

The "other story" I'm referring to above is that last weekend, we were heading to Birmingham for my brother's wedding.  On Thursday I picked up Boone at school and he felt really hot to me.  I checked his temperature when I got him home and it was over 102 degrees.  The next morning, we were packing to leave and kept checking his temperature periodically.  Around 12:30 p.m. and only about an hour from getting on the road, we checked and it was 104.3.  We got him in to see his doctor around 2:00 and were told it was just a virus that had to run its course.  No reason to cancel our trip.  So we got on the road a lot later than we had planned.  He ran a fever the entire weekend and because of me being sick myself, and then worrying about Boone, and having him sleep with me each night, I was completely exhausted.  I didn't take the first picture at the wedding.  I didn't even take my camera into the church.  I am so disappointed about that.  I had been looking forward to the weekend for a few months and had planned to take lots of pictures.  Instead, I only took a few pictures of Fenn at the park and of Boone in the bathtub.  They had a photographer at the wedding and we got a family photo taken.  So I'm looking forward to seeing the proofs from the wedding and reception soon.  Congratulations to Greg and Tanya!  And welcome to the family, Tanya and Polly!  We now have another niece.

You can see all of Boone's 12-month onesie photos by looking over in the right-hand column of the blog under "More Photos of Fenn and Boone" and clicking on the link to "Boone's 12-Month Onesie Photos".

New Tastes for Boone

In early November, Boone continued to try new foods.  The transition to solid foods all started back in early October with rice cereal.  Then he progressed to things like squash, sweet potatoes, and pears.  But this month, Boone moved on to things with stronger tastes like bananas, peas, and green beans.

Here's his first taste of bananas on November 1st.

And here's his first taste of peas on November 6th.  Pretty good reaction so far.  {Which totally surprises me because I have tasted them and they're nasty!}

And here's Boone's 2nd taste of peas on November 7th.  This time we got one of those full body "heebie jeebie" quivers!

Fenn is 23 Months Old!

In honor of Fenn turning 23 months old at 6:19 p.m. today, I thought I should do a post that is "all about Fenn".  I have actually been meaning to do this post for a while now, but haven't been able to fit it in.  He has changed so much since Boone was born almost 6 months ago, and we are so very proud of him.  He continues to amaze us each and every day.  And he is such a good big brother to Boone.  He is always kissing and hugging on him and is actually pretty gentle with him most of the time, considering Fenn is still so young and doesn't quite understand about not being too rough with him.  The above photo was taken recently one morning at home.  Boone was in his swing and Fenn decided to read to him.  He kept putting books in Boone's lap (I suppose he was trying to share) and then he pulled up his "time out" stool, sat down, opened up a book, and started "reading" it to him.

The photos I'm using in the rest of this post are from Fenn's Halloween Party at school the other day.  They had a party and then went outside on the playground to do a piñata.  So I decided to stop by and take some photos.  The next photo was taken while they were inside.  Ariyanna had just kissed Fenn and then while hugging each other, they fell over laughing.  So cute!

Here are some things Fenn is doing these days:

:: He can count to 6.  The words aren't exact, but you can make out what he's saying.

:: He loves to 'sing' the alphabet song.  You can't really make out all of the letters, but he pretty much makes a sound for all 26 letters and definitely has the tune right.  For example, you can definitely tell when he says, "T U V...".
The next photo was taken during Fenn's turn with the piñata.

:: He knows that Saturday comes after Friday.  Saturday seems to be one of his favorite words.  I also sometimes think he is getting Saturday confused with Cassidy.  She's a pretty little girl in the class ahead of him that I think he plays with a lot on the playground.
This is a photo of Fenn's class (Toddler 2) and the 2 Year Old class.  They blend the two classes a lot of the time, especially on the playground.

:: Strangely enough, we figured out by accident that he could sing the Barney song.  You know the one... "I love you... You love me... We're a happy family... With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you... Won't you say you love me, too?"  One day, he just started singing it AND doing the movements (hugging himself and blowing a kiss at the correct time in the song).  We had never even mentioned Barney in our household.  The few books we had were hand-me-downs from Dan's sister and they were in a drawer somewhere.  Apparently, he learned all about Barney at school.  So now we have pulled those books out and have recorded a couple of Barney episodes for him.  And we even think it is really sweet when he sings it.
This is Fenn and Anabelle.  They had just kissed each other and then lost their balance and fell on the ground while hugging each other.  This seems to happen a lot!

:: He will now say, "I love you, mommy." and "I love you, daddy."

:: When he doesn't want one of us to do something (for example, sing or talk), he'll say, "No, mommy." or "No, daddy."
I love this photo of Fenn.  He had just come down the slide and popped up laughing.

:: He still loves cheese.  And we always keep cheddar cheese cubes in the bottom drawer of our refrigerator.  We have one of those french door refrigerators with the freezer on the bottom.  Now when he decides he wants some, he'll get a step stool, put it in front of the refrigerator, open the doors, open the drawer, get the bag of cheese, open it, and get his cheese.  He also goes into the freezer for ice.
And I love these 3 photos of Fenn and Lily.  They were on one of the play sets on the playground and it has this bubble window on one side.  They started pressing their faces up against the bubble.

:: When he wants to show us something he has done (for example, when he makes a great big mess somewhere), he'll call us into the room, hold out both arms to his side and point his fingers in the air, and say, "Oh no!!!!".

That's just a little bit of what's going on with Fenn these days.  There's tons more stuff he's doing and saying these days, but I just can't remember everything.

Happy 23 Month Birthday, Fenn!  Mommy and Daddy love you very much.

Celebrating Andrew's 3rd Birthday at Chuck E. Cheese

Yesterday, Fenn went to his friend Andrew's 3rd birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's.  Andrew is the son of Jason and Angie (who works with Dan).  When Fenn was just a little baby, they were at the same daycare together.  But now they are at different places.  Here are a few photos from the party.

Fenn loved riding the horse.  He used most of his tokens riding it over and over again.

Boone hung out with Andrew's grandmother (Jason's mom, Sheryl).  {I'm pretty sure I just butchered the spelling of her name because I think she spells it differently.}  She was so sweet to keep an eye on him while Dan and I enjoyed the party and chased Fenn around.

I just like the expression on Fenn's face in this one.

The birthday boy, Andrew, with his mom, Angie.

I liked the next two photos.  In the first one, I focused on Andrew.  And in the second one, I focused on the candles.  Cool, huh?

And Fenn loved meeting Chuck E. Cheese!

Fenn had a great time at Chuck E. Cheese's.  Thanks Angie, Jason, and Andrew for inviting us! Happy Birthday, Andrew!

No More Paci!!!!

For a while now, Fenn has only used a pacifier (lovingly referred to as his 'paci') at night, and as much as I hate to admit it, at home during naptime.  But he hasn't used a paci at school for a really long time.  For some reason, he just wouldn't give up his paci when napping at home.  Maybe it was because he naps in his crib at home, but on a mat at school.  Anyway, we have known we needed to get rid of the paci once and for all.  Everything I have read says to get rid of it by the time they turn 2...which is next month.  {I can't believe he is about to be two years old!}  Because of having a newborn in the house and everything involved in trying to adjust to having another baby, we just have not put any real effort into getting rid of Fenn's paci.  A couple of times, we have tried not giving it to him at night or during naptime, but he would cry and cry and would not go to sleep without it.  We have tried to talk to him about how he'll have to throw it away soon.  Or sometimes we have told him he would need to give it to another little baby that needed it.  Once, I even asked him if he wanted to throw it away and he said, "Yes".  So we marched into the kitchen and he threw it into the trash can.  {Of course, we had back-ups on hand just in case it was a fluke.}  Still, he wasn't ready to give it up.  And we were just too tired to go through the nights and nights of letting him cry it out.  So we decided to just wait.

Recently, we discovered that Fenn likes Barney despite the fact that we had been avoiding introducing him to our household.  Neither of us was ready to stomach all the sugar sweet Barney stuff.  But one day, Fenn started singing the Barney song.  You know the one... "I love you... You love me... We're a happy family... With a GREAT big hug and a kiss from me to you... Won't you say you love me, too?"  And he would even do the movements to the song, like hugging himself and blowing a kiss.  {Obviously something he learned at school!}  We have to admit it's very sweet and have been singing the song with Fenn now.  So, we pulled out a few Barney books that Dan's sister, Debbie, had handed down to us.  One of the books had pictures of Barney sleeping.  So I used that as an opportunity to start pointing out to Fenn how Barney was sleeping in his big boy bed and did not have a paci.  I've done that a couple of times over the last week or so.  Well, last night we were reading that same book before Fenn went to bed.  And I started telling him he was a big boy like Barney and didn't need a paci.  And I started chanting "No more paci!... No more paci!  Yaaayyyy!!!" and jumping up and down.  And Fenn joined in with me.  So we put him to bed without his paci and never cried one time.  He never asked for his paci.  And he slept through the night, too.  We were afraid he would wake up in the middle of the night crying for his paci.  But he didn't.  He did ask for it first thing this morning, but we reminded him about Barney and the "No more paci!" chant.  And he was fine after that.  Hopefully, it's gone for good.

These are a couple of photos I took this morning.  Fenn was jumping up and down {hence the out of focus photos} and chanting "No more paci!"

ANOTHER ROLL OVER ALERT ~ Boone Rolls from Back to Belly

The other night (October 29th) I put Boone on his back on his activity mat and then walked out of the room to do something.  I walked back into the room a couple of minutes later, and this is what I found. {Not a great photo, but I was in a hurry.}

And last night I woke up and heard Boone cooing and talking in his room a little before 4:00 a.m.  He had flipped over to his belly.  There goes my theory that the sleep sack helps keep them from being able to flip over.  Guess it's time to remove the bumpers from the crib. 

Jack and the Beanstalk

This year, I decided to do a family theme for our costumes.  First of all, I found the greenbean costume for Boone.  Most people know that we refer to the boys as our 'beans' and that I use 'piperbean' for several things from my blog address to email addresses.  I got 'bean' from the first two letters of my name {beth} and the last two letters of Dan's name {be + an = bean}.  Then I thought it would be fun to do a Jack and the Beanstalk theme.  So I started searching online for costume ideas and found a girl's blog and her blog post from last year about how she made a 'Jack' costume for her baby.  And I decided it was time to bring the crafty side of Beth back out from wherever she's been hiding for the last few years.  It has been a while since I've done much of anything I would consider to be crafty.  And I think it had been at least 10 years since I had turned on my sewing machine!  I made Fenn's hat and yellow tunic and ended up staying up one night until 1:30 doing the whipstitch around the neck and armholes.  I even made the belt by braiding some brown yarn.  I kept my costume and Dan's costume pretty simple so we could still be comfortable.  Plus, I didn't have a lot of time to devote to our's.  Dan {the beanstalk} wore all different shades of green and had a leafy vine draped around him.  I {the hen that laid the golden eggs} wore all brown and then made a headband covered in brown feathers with a golden egg glued to the top. 

Just like last year, we planned to trick-or-treat with some of our friends who live on our street.  We had 8 kids aged 4 and under and a wagon train of 4 wagons.  We met up over at our neighbors' house a little after 5:00.  The forecast had called for a good bit of rain all day, but so far it had rained early that morning and then held off all day.  Unfortunately, it didn't last and it started raining around the time we were planning to start trick-or-treating.  We grabbed some umbrellas and headed out anyway.  We weren't going to let a little rain spoil everyone's fun.

It only took Fenn a couple of houses to figure out the routine.  We had already been practicing his "chick or cheat" {trick or treat} throughout the day.  By the second or third house he was walking up to the door on his own, saying "chick or cheat", and holding out his treat bag for more candy.  I thought he was really good considering he had to be patient and wait on the older kids to get their candy first.  They were all much faster at getting to everyone's doors!  But he'll be able to keep up with them much better next year.  And hopefully it won't be raining again... The rain seemed to really slow us down.  Fenn was so cute because every once in a while, he would stop and look down into his treat bag as if he was admiring his goods.  He's never really had much candy, so I'm surprised at how interested he was in it.

Boone was really good throughout the evening.  We took the stroller and had the seat reclined so we could just lay him down.  At every house, we would pick him up and walk up to the door with him so he could participate in all the fun, too.  But after the 6th or 7th house, we could tell he was getting sleepier and sleepier.  I would go to pick him up and he would be half asleep.  He would wake up long enough to go to someone's door, but would start nodding off as soon as we put him back in the stroller.  For the last few houses, we just let him stay in the stroller.

We only trick-or-treated for a little over an hour.  Once we got home, Fenn helped us answer the door and hand out candy a few times.  He would also get some more candy for himself and put it in his treat bag.  He wanted to watch Charlie Brown's "The Great Pumpkin" again, so we turned it on.  {He fell in love with The Great Pumpkin this year and has been watching it over and over!}  He sat down in his chair and went into one of those "I'm completely exhausted and over-stimulated" trances, staring blankly at the TV and holding his treat bag on his lap.  Then he snapped out of it and started hamming it up for the camera.  At some point (probably at school), he has learned to say "Cheeeeeese" when having his photo taken.  I think Boone was asleep by around 7:30 and then Fenn was probably asleep between 8:00 and 8:30.  It was a big day and night for our piperbeans.  Not only did they have trick-or-treating that night, but Fenn also went to Ella Kate's (his school friend) birthday party earlier that day.  He talked about "EK house" {Ella Kate's house} all day and the next day.

The next morning, we were headed out to church.  While walking through the garage to get to the car, Fenn saw his wagon and said, "Again... again."  He wanted to go trick-or-treating again.

I have more photos from Halloween night in the "Fall 2009" photo album.  Just look over in the right-hand column of the blog under "More Photos of Fenn and Boone" and click on the link to the photo album.