A Family Thanksgiving!

I love the Thanksgiving holidays.  Some of my fondest memories of a child are remembering how my cousins and I would get tossed out of the kitchen area while the "adults" would cook.  And how my Papaw would sometimes smoke the turkey in his big "Texas" size silver smoker out in the driveway.  Awwww....I can still remember that smell too of the delicious turkey we would get to eat.  I thank God for my family and now since I'm the adult, there are so many new things to be thankful for. 

This year we headed north for the holidays to show off our new baby girl to her great grandmothers.....and of course experience much cooler weather.  Yes, the top of the list of thankfulness is that my kids have four great grandmothers in their lives.  So this trip we got to see great grandma Wheat and great grandma Santilli.

The trip started out bright and early since we were flying and needed extra time to board the plane.  The plane trip to Maryland was uneventful with the kids....thank goodness!  I had been so anxious leading up to the plane ride and sometimes those are the moments I want to go back and relive because I spend so much time worrying about things that I don't get to enjoy the moment and the memories made with my family.

Did I mention how cold Maryland weather was to us?  Oh my gosh!  Anything under 60 degrees is cold to this Texas girl and I don't think the daytime temperature got over 50 degrees all the days we were there.  The memory of the cold weather though will be that I FORGOT my jacket back in South Carolina!!  See I told you my anxiety had gotten the best of me before leaving and this was my punishment.

Other than leaving my jacket back home, the trip couldn't have been anymore perfect.  Everyday was filled spending time with cousins, cousins and more cousins.  Grandma Wheat came over to spend the night so we got to enjoy her a little longer than we normally do when we are visiting.  At one point there were a lot of people in the house and I thought Cannon would retreat to being his shy self but his cousins played with him and loved on him so much.  He cried when one would have to leave.  You can only imagine how much that broke my heart.  We have no family where we live and to see Cannon (and Caroline) warm up to their cousins was such a great feeling.

While we were there, Grandma W. let us borrow her car and we took a four hour road trip even more north to Pittsburgh, PA.  My 98 year-old grandmother is such a blessing in my life.  She acts like she is 50 with all the energy she has cooking, cleaning and taking care of my two uncles but she complains like she is 100.  She has the right to complain.  We all should be taking care of her, cooking all the meals at holidays and cleaning her house but she insists that she does it because nobody can do it better than her.  Well, she is right.  Nobody I will ever meet can come close to the delicious Italian meals she cooks.  All my life, she has been cooking all her own pasta, sauce, breads and Italian cookies.  Aaron wishes I had her skills but this girl has none!  Grandma Santilli was so happy to see us.  She loved on Cannon and got a kick out of Caroline's independent personality.  I think she gets it from her!  Ha!

This Thanksgiving couldn't have been any sweeter.  The blessings make my heart smile.  Caroline is here and healthy, Cannon is a sweet little boy, Aaron is a wonderful husband and daddy and our family is so loved by the ones we love so much.  It is hard being away from family but we pray they stay close in our hearts and we ask that God keep us all safe until we are together again.

Cannon got to experience sleeping in a big bed

Great-Grandma Wheat and Caroline meeting for the first time

Where Cannon goes, his books go too!

Hey Cannon....did any of the pudding make it in your mouth?

Sweet Caroline on her 1st Thanksgiving

The Wheat's - Thanksgiving 2010

Four generations of Wheat's (Aaron's dad missing)

Four generations of Santilli's (my dad is missing)

Caroline giving love to her great grandma!

Two beautiful girls!

Uncle Scott

Cousin Lindsey

Aunt Blanche

Cousin Kelly

Cousins Jake & Megan

Uncle George & Aunt Nancy

Aunt Barbara & Uncle Bruce

Cousins!!!!

Cannon having fun with the flight attendant button...opps!

This is the sweet pilot that helped us off the plane. 

He said that he was missing his daughters for Thanksgiving and asked if he could hold Caroline while we gathered all our stuff.  I heart nice people!

Right Size, Wrong Color

Having kids 14 months apart means you always have a larger size in a drawer if needed!

Yes Daddy, your little girl is wearing camo tonight!

A November Kind of Day

This is how we roll on a beautiful and sunny November day in the lowcountry....

We wake up happy!

We cheer on our little sissy who is drinking out of a sippy cup for the first time!

We look up to our big brother and enjoy our morning drink!

We head to Old Town Bluffton!

We wear cute bows and cardigans!

We get excited seeing a boat on the May River!

We get a little sad when Daddy wants to leave!

We get an adorable picture of our little girl and her chubby cheeks!

And get another one!

We push the limits and try to get a picture of brother & sister!

And with no such luck with a duo photo we leave but had fun anyway!

Elmo!!!

Cannon's buddies, Wesley and Landrum celebrated their 2nd birthday with the best big red character there is....ELMO!!

At first almost every child was petrified of Elmo but as he danced around and let the kids warm up to him, they were then sad to see him go.  Cannon clung on to me for his life then we begged him to get one last picture with him before Elmo left.

Happy Birthday to two very sweet and adorable 2 year-olds, Wesley & Landrum!

From Bottle to Bed

Caroline LOVES her night time bottle.  I know it will be hard on both of us to give this routine up but hopefully when that day comes I will have a change of heart.  Having Caroline on the bottle is easy breezy but since there have been bottles in my house for over two years I think I might enjoy having my counterspace back.  

I remember this same phase with Cannon where I would dread having to say goodnight to my baby who had fallen asleep in my arms.  There's just something a mom feels when we hold our sleeping babies.  

 

Night-Night Caroline!  Sweet Dreams!!

My Sweet Girl!

Our neighbor, Laura, gave Caroline this sweet onesie and I have waited patiently for her to finally be able to wear it.

Her big brother must have some attention too!

I love this!!

A Trip to Charleston

We took a day trip to Charleston to see our friends, the Snider's.  They moved there a couple of months ago and it has been a little lonely for us.  We have done so much with them over the past couple of years.

The road trip went as good as could be with two little ones.  We tried to head out of town as soon after breakfast but it was closer to 10:00am (momma didn't prepare the night before) which put us in Charleston right at lunch and nap time.  This was the part of the trip that was the worse!  Both kids pretty much screamed when I tried to put them down for their naps.  I really don't blame them.  They don't have a lot of change in scenery when it comes to nap time so being in someone else's bed AND room didn't make them too happy.  Once they screamed and got really, really tired, they sleep just fine.

So after naps we headed to the Children's  Museum downtown.  I think all the kids had fun and us parents had some fun too.  It was very cold though.....and of course I did not come prepared so I felt so sorry for Miss Caroline who didn't have a hat or gloves to keep warm.  

Once we said our goodbyes to Ben, Danielle, Maddie and Isabella we went to eat at our favorite chicken place in Charleston.....Bojangles!  Yummy but oh so not good for the waistline!  And after our bellies were stuffed, we headed back to Bluffton for the night.

Thank you Snider's for having us visit!