Two Days of Thanksgiving

Normally on Thanksgiving, Jeff and I try to fit in multiple family visits into one day.  This year though, with Renee in tow, we decided to go a bit easier on ourselves.  Well, that was the plan anyway :D

To start our two day holiday celebration off we packed up the car and headed to Briones Regional Park in Pleasant Hill on Thursday morning for a hike.  The weather was beautiful and the dogs had a great time running around on the trail and chasing the ball.  Renee also enjoyed the hike, she just loves being outdoors for any reason, especially if she gets to watch the dogs run around.  I wore her in my front pack and zipped my fleece jacket up over her legs so she was nice and cozy warm.  

After the dogs were tired, we drove up to my parents house for my family's Thanksgiving dinner. There were a ton of people (19) and a ton of food (enough to feed a small army).

Renee is pretty comfortable at my parents house now, and even though she only sees them about once a month, I can tell she recognizes her Grandma and Grandpa.  But when everyone else arrived she was a little overwhelmed.  It took her a while, but she warmed up to the idea of getting to know all those relatives and ended up having a great time.

Playing with cousin Credence.

Hanging out with Uncle Dave.

Chatting with cousins Olivia and Loren.

The next morning we just relaxed and let Renee play and practice crawling.  She has been working on it for a while now and about two weeks ago she figured out how to push herself up from laying on her tummy to sitting up on her butt.  So we knew she was close.

Look at that concentration.  Tongue out, just like her Daddy!

She's also been practicing her standing lately, of course she always needs something (or someone) to hang on to for balance :D

Then for lunch on Friday we went to Jeff's parent's house in Dublin. 

Grandpa Earl and the kitty, Ted 2.

Grandma Karen was so happy to see her.

After spending the afternoon with Jeff's parents we went over to my step-mom's house in Pleasanton for dinner.

Grandma Lynne and Lacey dog.

Uncle Sam.

While we were there, we let Renee play a bit on the floor.  She REALLY wanted this metal pumpkin decoration that was on Lynne's coffee table, so we put it on the floor just out of her reach and....

SHE CRAWLED!!!!!!

It was really slow, and not very far, and she looked more like a lobster than a baby, but she crawled for the first time :D  It was very exciting!  Of course Renee was just happy she got to the pumpkin.  

We went back to my parents' house to spend one more night and then came home Saturday afternoon.  It was a tiring 2 1/2 days, but very fun and well worth all the driving to see our family for the holiday.

In other Renee news, she is also getting very good at waving and saying "hi", although it sounds more like "haaaaaaa".  But, she's working on it :)  Oh, and Jeff put up some more pictures and a movie on her gallery page, so go check them out.

If a baby pulls herself up and no one is around to see it, did she really stand on her own?

Yesterday, when I picked Renee up from daycare, all of the teachers were so excited because Renee had used a bench to pull herself up from sitting to standing for the first time.  The catch was that no one saw it.  They left her sitting on her own, they all got distracted with helping other babies, and when they looked over at Renee she was standing!

Initially I was excited too, but when I was driving home and thinking about this HUGE thing that my baby girl did, I started getting really sad.  I wasn't there to see her stand up on her own for the 1st time!  The fact that no one else saw it was only a little bit of a consolation, and a very selfish one at that!!

She's growing soooo fast, and of course I'm not going to be there to see every new thing she does, as much as I want to.  And I can only imagine how Jeff feels, he barely gets to see her at all during the week; maybe 15 or 20 minutes every morning, and then sometimes he gets home after she goes to bed at night.

Obviously we can't stop her from growing, so we just have to enjoy every second with her as much as we can before she moves on to the next big thing.  And of course take pictures, tons and tons of pictures :D

And more for my own memory keeping than anything else, here are some of Renee's most current milestones (besides the whole standing thing):

• She can say mama now, although it's more like, "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma" 
• She can also say dada and daaah (translation: dog, she LOVES the dogs) 
• Her 1st tooth is coming in!
• She can point and poke at things with her index finger (seems trivial, but it's an important one)
• She's beginning to depend less on putting everything in her mouth and starting to actually explore what else she can do with them (i.e. shaking rattles, banging things together, etc.)
• And finally, she's getting more and more adorable every single day :D

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.  ~Dr. Seuss

Her first Halloween!

I wasn't even going to get Renee a costume this year, she wouldn't know what was going on anyway.  But, my own guilt and a chat with a good friend pushed me over the edge.  So, on Wednesday, only 4 days before Halloween, I took Renee to one of those Spirit Superstores in Sacramento.  What a madhouse that place was!  They had no cute costumes left for babies, and the ones they did have were $30!!!  NO way was I going to spend that much on something she was only going to wear one time and that she wouldn't even remember.

So, then we went to Target, who was selling their very limited selection of costumes they had left at 30% off.  I ended up getting a flower costume for infants 0-6 months old.  Too small for Renee, of course, but that's all they had and I knew I could fix it.  $10.50 on the costume and about 30 minutes with my seam ripper and sewing machine later and my baby girl had her very first Halloween costume.  Not bad, if I do say so myself :D

She wore it to daycare on Thursday for their Fall Harvest Festival.  I knew they were having this festival, and they said costumes were optional, but EVERY single baby was dressed up!  

Renee with her teacher Erika and friends from daycare.

I was so glad I ended up getting a costume for Renee, she would have been the only one not dressed up if I hadn't.

Playing with a baby pumpkin at the Harvest Festival

On Friday, we were supposed to go to my parent's house for dinner, but I ended up getting a major headache (rare for me) and so we stayed home and relaxed instead.

On Saturday, we had dinner with some great friends.  She wore her Halloween shirt that said, "Daddy is under my Spell".  Which, he is!

Happy with Steve O., and that's Katie in the background.

Hanging out with Jane and Steve.

On Sunday, we had breakfast in Vacaville with Jeff's mom and some of her friends.  Then we went home to do some chores before my mom came over to spend the afternoon with us.  And Renee wore her "Baby's 1st Halloween" shirt.   We can thank the local children's consignment store for all her Halloween themed shirts :D

Watching the Giants game with Grandma Denise.

There were only a handful of Trick-or-Treaters, but Renee did enjoy seeing their interesting costumes.  And after such a long and event filled weekend, she was pooped!

All of that Halloween fun made for a very tired baby!!