Giving Thanks

The last few years we've decided to stay in DFW for the Thanksgiving holiday for one reason or another. This year we had so many things to be thanful for: a new position for Trinity that allows him to work from home, having an easy and safe pregnancy, delivering a healthy baby girl, our wonderful family and friends who provided lots of support, and most recently a new job for me! So, we decided to go home to Midland, mostly because we wanted our extended family to meet Gracie.

We decided to drive Sunday morning as soon as we'd fed Gracie her early morning feeding at 6:30. Two hours later we were actually on the road. Funny how much extra time you need for a little baby...who had her own suitcase full of necessities! Thankfully she did great in the car and slept the entire trip. We stopped in Abilene to eat dinner, feed Gracie, fill up the tank, and walk the dogs. Amazingly we made it to Midland in six hours, which is as much time as it takes us with traffic on a Friday night.

Trinity worked from my mom's house on Monday and Tuesday while Gracie and I made our rounds of visits and played. Thursday was a big day with two huge Thanksgiving meals: lunch with Trinity's family and dinner with mine. Gracie mostly behaved and let us enjoy our Thanksgiving meals.

My first thanksgiving!

Trinity's family has quite a few little children and babies, so it was fun to watch them notice Gracie. She got to meet cousin Luke for the first time, and he loved to pat her and say "Baby!" We can hardly believe how big he's gotten since we saw him in August! I can only imagine how much fun it will be in a year when Gracie will be running after all the other kids.

Meeting cousin Luke

At my family's house, Gracie was most definitely the center of attention. We hardly had any room in our stomach's at our second meal, but somehow I managed to eat a whole plate of food and a slice of pumkin bread for dessert!

Four generations!

The rest of the weekend we made rounds at some of our family and friend's houses and tried to relax. We must have worn our little girl out because she slept 8 hours almost every night! The first morning I woke up thinking, "Wow, I feel amazing!" We were hoping that the sleep pattern would continue when we got home, but I think the 5 hours of sleep on the ride back home did not help. Our first night home she woke up every 3-4 hours, which was hard to go back to after a week of good, long sleep. Thankfully it only took a few days for her to get back to her regular schedule, and she's back to sleeping 6 hours straight at night. And now we have two more things to be thankful for: a good traveling baby and a sleeping baby!