Thanksgiving 2013

I am so thankful that the end of the semester is near!  It has been a crazy whirlwind, and I've nearly lost my mind multiple times.  I wish I were exaggerating...

I sadly cannot find time to blog or read blogs.  I have a whole catch-up post in my mind, waiting to be written, but who knows when I'll have time to write it.  Here are the highlights in bullet points, in case I never write it:

• My 29th birthday was this past month. It was excellent and involved a shopping day trip with Luke and Scarlett.  Oh, and I got a ticket to go see Wicked at the end of the month for my birthday, so I'm pretty much over-the-moon excited!
• Scarlett had a hospital stay a few weeks ago to have a few tests done, and monitoring to see why she wasn't gaining weight very fast.  The verdict?  Nothing is wrong with her and she's just small.  Duh.  Luke and I were beyond frustrated with all of that, because we knew in our guts nothing was wrong with her.  This has been the story of her life so far, even before she was born!
• Luke and I watched the entire Breaking Bad series in 2.5 months.  It is the best, most intense TV series I've ever watched, and I'm sad it's over!

Okay, so that about catches us up.  So for the rest of this post, I'll share some of our pictures and memories from Scarlett's first Thanksgiving!

Luke and Scarlett and I watched the Macy's Parade in our pajamas, while we got ready in shifts.  I love watching the parade every year if for no other reason than the fact that it's tradition.

I think Scarlett is really starting to recognize familiar faces and voices, and Daddy is definitely one of her favorites.  Already her hero...my heart just about explodes daily:

At noon we headed over to my Grandpa's house.  This was such a unique day for me, because while it was my first Thanksgiving with Scarlett, it was also my first holiday without my Grandma.  Very bittersweet.  My grandpa, mom, and aunt tried to set the table like she would have wanted, and I think they did a great job.  I'm so glad almost the entire family was able to be together to celebrate, and I'm sure my grandpa really appreciated it too.

You can tell they're both thinking, "where's the food?  I'm ready to eat!"  Ha!

I feel like in future years when I come back to read this post, it will be very apparent that plaid was very "in" this year!

I love this picture of Scarlett and my cousin Rachel

...And this one of my mom and sister with Scarlett

...And especially this one of my Grandpa with her.  She sure does love her great grandpa!  Ever since she was just a few weeks old, she has always seemed completely captivated by him.  I think you can see that in this picture.

You can tell by the next few pictures that things started to get a little goofy after lunch.  There's my dad, making this kids laugh as always

Family Picture...our first Thanksgiving as a family of 3 (unless you count last year when Scarlett was the size of a pea!)

After Thanksgiving at my Grandpa's, we headed over to Luke's Aunt and Uncle's house to celebrate with his family.  I didn't get too many pictures here because I was busy playing Scattegories the whole time.  I can never pass up a good word game.  However, I discovered on Thursday that I'm possibly the worst Scattegories player every.  I kid you not, I was worried that I had somehow developed Aphasia.  (the future speech therapist in me is scared of too many things going wrong!)  I could not think of any words!  Oh well, we'll just chalk it up to mommy brain.

Anyway, we had a good time!  But clearly Scarlett was starved for attention...

There she is with Luke's cousin Jane

We got a family photo before the end of the day

You can tell Scarlett was getting pretty exhausted by this point!

But not too tired for some smooches from Aunt Di and Aunt Moey!  Her aunts sure do love her!

To end the day, we stopped at my Grandma's place for awhile.  I didn't get any pictures there, but it was nice to catch up with everyone!  We came home, crashed on the couch, and had a Netflix night with a sleeping Scarlett in my arms.  

Thanksgiving was so much fun!  Holidays are going to be so different with Scarlett.  I know she's too young to really know what's going on, but seeing everything through her eyes just makes it seem so much more special.  I just fee like my heart is so full!