Happy Thanksgiving!

Emma pulled every book off of the left side so that she could crawl into the bookshelf.  Silly, silly...

Spa day in a jar. Cute!

Who needs a smart phone?  These mamas rock it old school.

Getting two 18 month olds to sit for a photo... hilarious.

 Wha chu lookin at?

Happy Girl!

 

Has Thanksgiving really already been here and gone?  I feel like we JUST celebrated Thanksgiving last year.  Time goes by way too quickly. 

 

Emma did awesome on the drives.  Traveling in the middle of the day (during her naptime) has been working the best for all of us.  Traffic isn't as awful as it is during rush hour and she gets at least a couple hours of the long trip spent napping.  We also can drive straight through without stopping for a meal, which saves a lot of time and mess.  Win!

 

Although we were only able to attend half of our Thanksgiving feasts, we were able to make it to one for each family, which was nice.  We also had a Thanksgiving luncheon with our friends here on Thanksgiving day and had a great time.  Terrah was our hostess this year and her poor husband was on backup call, came home, walked in the door and had to turn right back around because he got called back to the hospital.  Sigh...

 

Thanksgiving rant:  What consumer decided that it was ok to begin Black FRIDAY shopping on Thursday?  It used to begin early- say, 5am.  Then it switched to midnight.  I was fine with that- it gave you the option to simply stay up late instead of waking really early.  But beginning shopping at 5pm on THANKSGIVING is awful. Truly.  It's Thanksgiving.  The majority of us in America have issues with overzealous consumerism.  We know this.  We're weak.  Clearly.  Stores wouldn't have their sales on Thanksgiving night at 5pm (which is when families should be sharing a meal together!) unless people would come.  And I'm assuming they did, although I did not partake in the festivities both because I refuse to support the idea of it and also because I refuse to give up my family time to go shopping for a semi-good deal.  Emma and I went out this morning to do some shopping and got some great deals without the fuss, crowds, or by giving up on family time (Zack was hunting).  Hear me out, major retailers:  Don't weaken those who can't resist a good deal further.  Everyone should be able to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.  You'll have plenty of opportunity to make us spend money we don't have on things we don't need at midnight or after.

Laurie Maples

What a whirlwind the last few days were!  We had a very fast, very speedy, very quick trip home that was fun but tiring.  Despite having only one day of rest, Emma had her very best driving trip ever.  She was a perfect angel in the car and handled the hours spent in her carseat beautifully.  I was sooooooo proud of her!

When we got home on Sunday night Zack's phone buzzed and out of habit I took a peek at it (he gets texts frequently, but most of them are just Camofire alerts so I'll look at it, say if it's a person or Camofire and let him know so he doesn't have to worry about hustling to the phone if it isn't work related).  The first few words perked my interest and I ended up reading the text and some saucy girlfriend named Laurie Maples was asking Zack to call or text her because she loves and misses him.  Zack asked me, "What was the text? Is everything ok?"  And I say, "Well... you tell me! Who's Laurie?"  We went on the laugh about it, but nevertheless whoever Laurie Maples is made my heart stop for a moment.

The Cheesecake Factory Discrimination

Roberta and Emma

 

 

Emma's first time listening to headphones

 

Wow... I've been bad!  So sorry for not updating lately.  There is a lot to catch up on!  MawMaw came to visit this past weekend and it was lovely!  We were able to enjoy some delicious food and relax and enjoy our company together.  The trip was so nice, but went by far too quickly.  Weekend trips are always a pleasure, but are way too fast.

 

Roberta came over for a quick visit last week.  She went to the Garth Brooks concert that was here in Lexington last weekend and said that it was wonderful.  I'm not a huge Garth Brooks fan, but I'm sure that it was fun to go to a concert regardless of the talent performing.  I've always enjoyed live music.

 

We've had lots of time at the library, as per our usual routine.  It's unfortunate that we have to drive to a different library for the good storytime librarians now, but it's worth the haul.  I was able to borrow "Maleficent" and the new XMen movie- both of which were good.  "Maleficent" wasn't what I thought it would be.  It was better! XMen was, of course, fabulous.

 

Sunday is where my rant begins.  Mom and I wanted to go to lunch with Emma before she had to go back to Indiana and we decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory which is relatively new in town (about a month old now).  We were there before the doors even opened and were easily within the first 50 people inside.  As we're waiting in line to get to the hostess people are being taken directly to their tables.  When we get up to the front of the line we're all of a sudden told that we have to wait 30-40 minutes to get a table BECAUSE WE NEED A HIGH CHAIR.  As I look around there is at LEAST 1/3 of the restaurant open (the entire front section of tables minus two that were already seated, which equals about 15 open tables) was EMPTY and OPEN.  But because we needed a highchair for my baby we would have to wait.  EXCUSE ME?!  There are open tables!! And it wasn't that they were out of high chairs and we would have to wait for one to become available.  NO-  it was simply because of our special need that we would have to wait.  I'm sorry, but any large person or person in a wheelchair or ANY OTHER PERSON sitting at a table will take up the same amount of space that a high chair will take up.  Hostess- take a chair away and give us a high chair.  Easy peasy.  But no- they lost our business and respect.  Who knew that the Cheesecake Factory was above the law and able to discriminate against mothers with children?