CA trip through Thanksgiving

We packed up the essentials and went to Mom & Kevin's house for a night.  That day both Maegwin and I had fevers so we really weren't very good company.  We spent most of the time on the couch watching Netflix and cuddling under a comforter and we went through a fair bit of wood keeping a fire going so we could stay warm.  I think I also went through roughly three jumbo boxes of tissues.  Maegwin napped a lot and sweated it out on one of Auntie Laura's giant teddy bears.

Maegwin also worked on doing the sticks juggling that Aunt Laura was showing her while we were there. She definitely enjoyed playing with them!


That night I actually sent Josh out to buy a vaporizer because I was having so much trouble breathing. It did help though we steamed out the walls of the room we were in. I'm glad we had it though. We had a rough time and he did a lot of walking around cradling Maegwin and her menagerie of creatures. Of course, the beloved Moo and in this photo some random lamb.


On Wednesday, we went back to Grandpa's house to make Thanksgiving dinner for him. Josh's sisters came up also and Josh made his first turkey. It turned out great but sadly I didn't get many pictures on this day because I was helping and wrangling Maegwin as well. I baked some of my bread too.

The girls packed everything up into multiple meals and froze it so hopefully we've stocked the freezer for a while. We also got a chance to play Carcassonne with Josie and Matt while both of the kids took crazy long naps. We had such a great time with it. Matt & Josie got it for us for Christmas and we look forward to playing it again. I really enjoy those kinds of games that have a dynamic board that is either built up or changes with each time you play it. We really need to get our board game night up and running again.

Thursday we went over to the other set of grandparents' house and celebrated Thanksgiving as well as all the November and December birthdays. I think October too since Josh's was celebrated. Maegwin enjoyed hanging with all the gals.

She of course was feeling a bit better by this time as I was getting worse. I swear children are like small traveling petri dishes. Maegwin got tons of presents but she didn't quite get it at first I think. She thought we were saying pretzels which she had rather enjoyed on the plane ride out. Each time she'd open something up she'd say "Where are the pretzels?" and look very disappointed. Once I told her with greater enunciation she was much happier.
She got a tea set from her great-grandparents.

Which she happily shared with Aunt Jean and Aunt Wendy's puppy.

She was quite a good hostess.

She read with Baby Lily.

She also seemed very fascinated with her clothes. She loves the babies at her daycare whenever she gets to see them.

One down, one to go

I've got one mitt down and one to go!  I might do this yet...to distract you all, please enjoy this lovely picture of Maegwin putting on her jammies by herself.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas day tomorrow and to all of my friends and family I can't be with, please know that I miss you and am thinking of every one of you.

I'm crazy

Yesterday we went to Maegwin's 2 year check up. She is 35 inches tall, holding strong in the 75th to 90th percentile on height and 25.2 pounds, so 25th percentile in weight. Everything else is fabulous and the doctor said she was advanced on her verbal skills. Yay!



After we went, she sacked out in the car for all of 20 minutes to drive home and then flatly refused to nap until 3 pm. By that time I was really ready for her to go to sleep as she became progressively more grouchy. There is something about getting a toddler down for what you know will be a long nap. It makes you ponder crazy things and feel fairly invincible in the fact that you were able to tame such a wild creature into submission. My bright idea? Take something from my More Last Minute Knitted Gifts book and whip it up for Christmas. Simple right? My plan was to turn this yarn into these fingerless gloves. Wagers, anyone?

wow-seriously

I see that I have not written a blog post since October and frankly judging from the state of my house I'm not surprised. Work has taken us by the feet, whacked us around a bit, and left us in a state of disarray. Add into that mix two bouts of bronchitis for me (the most recent of which was during my one and only vacation of the year, but I digress) and you have the makings of a crazy couple of months. Maegwin is quite cheery, continues to thrive, and seems largely uneffected by the chaos. They say that disorder is the sign of a brilliant mind so I just chalk it up to us raising her to do magnificent things.

We went to California over the Thanksgiving holiday and on the Friday before we were heading out, both Maegwin and I had stuffy noses and mild coughs. No big deal, thought I, it's just a cold but I'll pack my rescue inhaler just in case. I had just recovered from the first batch of bronchitis, which took a little over a month and was finally back to going to the gym. Our flights took a total of ten hours travel time, with a stop that was not included on our original itinerary in Denver. Be warned, if you don't have to change planes Southwest doesn't consider it a stop and thus doesn't add it. In the Vegas airport Maegwin insisted on walking. We were all the way on the other side. She walked until we got to the A terminal and then started crawling and eventually just sprawled on the floor. She looked as defeated as I felt. I had the bright idea to put her on our roller bag and she rode happily, waving to everyone like a beauty pageant winner. We finally got into Oakland and noticed our car seat was not on the jetway...we had gate checked it so it would be right there for us. No worries, said the flight crew-if you checked it through it went down with the luggage and you'll have to pick it up down there. Ok, we loaded up and headed down with Maegwin in the Ergo. Let me pause to say the baby carrier was probably one of the greatest inventions ever. On to the baggage claim! Out came all our bags and we waited and waited but no car seat. A nice man standing next to us said that car seats come out in the irregular luggage area. We headed over there and saw several men just standing around waiting. We asked them about our car seat. They all looked at each other and said there were no car seats on the flight. I lost it then. Why did we bother to gate check the darn thing if they were going to lose it anyway? I had visions of it sitting on the jetway at the Denver airport in our "unpublished" stop. We started stomping toward the lost baggage office and I happened to glance to the side at a cordened off area. There was the car seat (minus one strap padding)! There was no mistaking the bits of sunshine cereal stuck to it so I knew it was ours. We grabbed it and headed to the rental car place. Everything seemed to go ok until they sent us out to the kiosk to pick our car. It was pouring down rain and dark by this time. The woman was working two counters alone and basically told Josh to go find the mid-size cars in the lot. We had no umbrella and I had on some felt flats that were more like wet wool slippers at this point and a very wet baby in an Ergo. Seriously, Dollar, shame on you! He came back ten or so minutes later and we loaded up and made it to Grandpa's house to settle in.

Maegwin made herself right at home and started stalking "doggy Emma". She loved her instantly and the entire trip as soon as she woke up she asked to find doggy Emma and Grandpa.

We got a rare Maegwin and Mommy photo.

Then we just hung out that evening. It was nice to decompress after the flight and my head was hurting and the cough was getting worse by this point. Oh, I also brought my neti pot and I can't sing its praises enough. I believe without it I would have been at the emergency room because that sinus infection would have gone to bronchitis much sooner.
Maegwin played with Emma's toys and entertained herself as any self-respecting two year old can do.

By the time our two days were done and we switched to Mom and Kevin's house, Maegwin and Grandpa were fast friends.

More on days 3-9 later as I have to go attend a two year old climbing on a coffee table.