Thanksgiving 2011

Fletcher and I went to Charlotte for Thanksgiving with Jesse's side of the family. Zac and I took him to the park.

Austin and Fletcher have some of the same interests...as in cleaning supplies.

Fletcher "helped" in the kitchen. His idea of helping in this house was trying to get food from anyone that would feed him. I guess his mother starves him.

He was in love with the rocking chair that Stephanie and Jake had in their living room.

Of course he was also in love with the fact that there were two dogs in the house. At one point, he got down on his hands and knees and tried to grab this toy from this dog with his mouth too. Stephanie watched him while he played with Berkley and she took him from me a little bit for a break. They had some one-on-one time at the grown-up table.

Ramona introduced him to cream cheese and he learned how it becomes cream cheese frosting, while at the same time Stephanie introduced him to chocolate milk. You can see in one of these pictures, the beater sprayed him with frosting and it didn't phase him one bit. He just kept sucking down the chocolate milk. Among other new foods, he got to enjoy some cheese puffs and spicy cheeze-its.

Here's the Oliver family. One of Austin's favorite things is the "i Pad Pad." He tried to show Fletcher how to play some of the games, but Fletcher didn't catch on too much.

Here are Nel, Pete, Alfrieda, Jake, Stephanie, Dennis, and Tammy.

Here's Ramona, Greg, Claudia, Buddy, Gene, Lawrence, Zac, and Mrs. Cranford.

We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday night and then a pig pickin' on Thursday. Each night we played games. (I love game nights!) Fletcher and Austin had trouble sleeping. Well, actually the first night I don't think anyone in the house slept well at all, so Thanksgiving Day was a long day. But even with everyone tired, we had a great time and before you knew it, it was Friday and everyone was heading in several different directions.

We found out on Thanksgiving that Buddy was going to have open heart surgery the following Tuesday. So, we changed our plans and instead of heading home, we went straight to his house to spend time with Oma and Opa before the procedure. We were able to see Becki as well, because she came into town to stay for the week and be there with her parents. Fletcher mooched food from Opa, as always...again enjoying something too spicy for me. He also enjoyed stories galore.

He liked the step stool they had and lately he's been into drinking from cups.

He also learned what was in Opa's coffee mug. He loves to watch and help Jesse make coffee at home. So, he did that with Opa as well, except he took it a step further. He enjoyed tiny amounts of coffee each morning, served on a spoon straight from the mug. I swear, with the spicy kick he likes and the coffee...you wouldn't think he's my child.

I went to the store and was gone for less than 30 minutes and came back to find my child zonked out in the living room. He was exhausted from our time in Charlotte and he seemed to have caught a bug there as well, so he wasn't feeling too well in SC.

Opa made him a house out of a large safe box, which was a nice distraction throughout the weekend.

Becki was the one who could really climb in and around it with him. All I could do was lay in there...on my side of course.