Thanksgiving 2009

I am way behind in posting about recent happenings, but I wanted to be sure to include a post about Jacob's first Thanksgiving. So here goes....

Every Thanksgiving that Keith and I have celebrated together (4 years) has been spent in Richmond with my family. This has usually happened because one (or both) of us had to work on the day after, so traveling wasn't going to work.

This year, since neither of us had work, we decided to venture up to Western PA to spend the holiday with Keith's family. We left on Monday afternoon and came back on Friday. We would have stayed through the weekend, but we had plans to meet up with friends of ours in Richmond on Saturday (Daryl & Ana who were in town from Toronto) and Sunday (Mark & Tanya who were in town from Asheville, NC). Unfortunately, the visit on Saturday didn't pan out, but we were overjoyed to see the Burdettes on Sunday!!

While we were visiting in PA, like we do many times, we stayed with Keith's aunt Kay & uncle Barry in the house that Keith grew up in. It was the first time we had taken an extended overnight trip with Jacob since September and I was worried that his schedule would get a bit messed up (which it did) and he would get overtired (which he did) and the trip would be stressful for me (which it was) because I am such a control freak when it comes to his schedule! All in all, though, I was pleased at how flexible he became and how easily he took to being around people that he doesn't see very often.

As you can see, he was quite happy hanging out with uncle Barry one morning:

And, aunt Kay got him some really fun toys to play with. She got down on the floor with him numerous times and he really enjoyed playing with her:

On Thanksgiving day, we went to Keith's cousin Susie's house and had 14 people around the dinner table. It was great to see everyone and for them to enjoy time with Jacob.

Of course, Jacob wasn't able to enjoy all of the delicious food that we had (they had turkey AND ham AND manicotti, not to mention all of the wonderful side dishes. And, the desserts were awesome!!) But, he did get to sit in his portable high chair and eat some yummy rice cereal!

He also got to experience the "Grand Illumination" of Susie & Tad's Christmas decorations. Jacob got to "hit the switch" and turn all of their outdoor lights on. Of course, at this point he was tired and probably cold (it was a bit chilly there that night), but he looked at all the lights with Daddy.

After he took his evening nap, he got to play a bit with Grandma Marge (Keith's mom) and his cousin Becca. At times, I think he wasn't sure about all of the people around but for the most part, he really relished the attention.

On Friday morning, we woke up to snow falling and Jacob got to experience his very first snowfall. It snowed for a few hours and a couple of inches accumulated on the ground. Keith and I were really excited to see snow & glad that we were able to show it to Jacob. I think he wasn't quite sure what to think about it, but he didn't cry or fuss when we took him outside in it.

We didn't keep him outside long since he didn't have super warm clothes on, but he did get to put his feet on the snowy ground.
He enjoyed being out there with Mommy & Daddy and we are hoping he gets to experience more snow when we travel north again for Christmas.