A Big Productive Day on Daddy's Day Off

So Alex had 2 days off in a row for the first time in forever. He took a vacation day the day before Thanksgiving so that we could prepare for Thanksgiving and get our Christmas tree!!! We are so excited for our first Christmas together as a family of three... plus Max. We had every intention of getting our Christmas tree from one of those farms where you can cut it down yourself. BUT time just couldn't be made to do that. So, Lowe's became our tree lot this year. I think one of the most hilarious parts to buying the tree was when we got home we forgot it was on top of Georgia and Alex tried to pull into the garage. Poor, poor TREE (our name for the tree this year. We are working on the word "tree" with Charlotte.)

 This is Charlotte's first glance of the tree. She does NOT like the way it feels.

 Max gets so worked up with the new things in life. A tree in the dining room totally threw him a curveball.

 Oh Tree. You are glorious... and you can't even tell that we are missing a few limbs from the garage encounter.

 "So, does anyone else notice there is a tree in the dining room?"

 She took so many cute pictures this day. She was so happy to spend the whole day with her daddy. She was so cute.

 This was PRICELESS. Charlotte snuck up on Max and pulled at his tail. How creepy does he look here??!!!???

 After the tree was placed in the dining room we did some yardwork. There is so little motivation to decorate a tree when it is 75 degrees outside. Charlotte loves being outside so she hung out with daddy outside. However, she hates her leg touching the grass. So when she sits in the grass she always has to have one of her legs up. It's hilarious.

 She was helping daddy rake. Look at her little chub rolls on her legs :)

 This is one of my all time favorite pictures of her.

 Well, her nickname is "Goose"... and she's hanging out like geese do with one foot up. :)

 Standing up barely holding onto daddy's finger!!

 She loves her daddy...

To end the day, Charlotte and daddy read a bedtime story. Here she is picking out which one she wants to read. LOVE thos PJs.

We love the days we can actually spend together. Those days go by way too fast and are few and far between. We make sure to take full advantage of our time together. Charlotte is crazy about her daddy, that's for sure.

And this was Thanksgiving Eve...

Creepy Crawler Visitor

The last day that Mary was visiting, I was cleaning the house for Thanksgiving dinner and she was sitting outside with Charlotte reading her some books. I had opened the windows in the dining room for Max to sit and creep on them. Well, one of the windows had a lizard in between the window and the screen. Max found it within a few minutes and all hell broke loose :)

 Max would not let the creepy lizard out of his sight. At one point it flew across the room when it bit his paw and he flung it. It almost hit Mary. SCARY.

 After multiple attempts with different bowls, Mary finally was able to trap the lizard under a bowl.

Max was NOT happy that she did that.

 We heard a noise in the dining room. The lizard was moving the bowl and Max was starting to pick up the bowl with his claw. So, we added a book.

The initial part of the lizard incident began around 4:30. Alex gets off of work at 8 so we had to leave it under the bowl until then.

 Alex called from work and said he was going to be late. He ended up getting home an hour and a half late... the poor little creepy amphibian was trapped under the bowl for 5  hours.

 Alex created a plan so that he wouldn't have to touch the lizard.

 He's such a smart, crafty little man!

 Yes, we videod like all of it. It was all hilarious.

 Max is hilarious. Look how big his tail is :)

Max is ready to stab someone here. He is so mad that Alex let the lizard go. He didn't speak to us for a week after the lizard incident.

Oh how I hate creepy things like that. I was so proud of Mary for stepping up to the plate and getting the bowl on top of the lizard.

Aunt Mary came to visit!!!

Its always so nice when Mary comes to visit. It's awesome having help with Charlotte and I love having one of my best friends in the entire world here with me. Everytime she's here, it reminds me of how much I miss having my sisters close.

 Charlotte was all decked out in her "I heart my aunt" onesie that Mary got her last time we saw her. She looked so cute with her little ruffle skirt on too. I got a little teary eyed picking her from the airport :)

 Here they are getting ready to go to sleep in the hotel bed while we were going out for Alex's birthday. They both look so deep in thought.

 I love both of their expressions in this picture :) Charlotte is so animated.

 She looks dumbfounded. Poor Max. Charlotte spends the greater part of her day chasing him around the downstairs.

 Max always makes sure to keep her within sight.

 Great picture :)

 Charlotte loves her Aunt Bare. She's giving her a kiss here. Soooo sweet.

 Love. My. Kid.

 She is hilarious. She is giggling so much here.

 Mary and I made our first ever homemade from scratch apple pie using Grandma Ann's recipe. I needed to practice before Thanksgiving dinner. We finally finished it at 1 am. It was pretty tastey :)

 So, their expressions are priceless here. They both just woke up.

 Picture session by the pond in the backyard.

 Awwwwww

Secrets. 

 This one is the best one. Both smiling. Both looking at the camera. Both have their eyes open (they both tend to close their eyes during pictures). It's perfect.

 Mary never leaves her little nephew out. Max always always always gets a ton of attention when Mary's here. He loves her.

 Creeps McGee. Keeping watch over the neighborhood.

One of my favorite pictures of them... reading books on the front lawn.

It was a great visit with Mary. We went to Columbia for Alex's birthday, went shopping, cooked, she helped me clean and prepare for Thanksgiving, went on a bike ride. It was great having her here. It's always hard to leave her at the airport. :(  Sometimes 1,000 miles away may as well be 3 million.  Thanks for the fun, Mary. WE ALL FOUR LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!

Alex turns 29!!!!

So this is the year of 29 :) I turned 29 in June and Alex turned it November 30th.

A few weekends before his birthday, I threw him a surprise party in Columbia, SC at Tsunami... his favorite food is sushi so this was a natural choice :) Although many-o-peeps were invited, many couldn't come bc of prior committments, work, USC football :), etc. But it was still a huge surprise bc he had no idea I was planning this.

I told him we were going to do something for his birthday as a family. I didn't tell him where we were going. Mary, my sister, flew in that afternoon. Since she spends every single break from college that she has down here with us, it was only natural that she was going to be here.  We all four piled into the bus and drove to Columbia. We stayed at a new-ish hotel downtown Columbia... Ma and Pa Weber gave that as Alex's birthday present :)

 I brought some drinks for us to have in the hotel room :) I was prepared.

 We walked from the hotel to the restaurant.

 Tsunami was the first place we went on a date back in 2008... well the Tsunami in Charleston :)

 Playing with Aunt Bare in front of a mirror is more fun than sitting in a high chair.

 Saki!!!

 Alex's birthday feast. (Excuse me while I dry heave)

 He's so happy.

 Playing games with Papa Jack, Granny J, and Aunt Amelia

 Uncle Adam and Adrienne were at dinner too!

 Fun night out with family and friends.

 Thanks Mom and Pop for coming :)

 It wouldn't be a special birthday without Kate and Daniel. Thank you so much to Daniel for driving all of the way from NC for the night. It was a perfect night with best friends.

 Charlotte stayed back in the room and partied...

...and spent some quality time with Aunt Bare.

It was a successful birthday celebration. Alex was surprised to see all of his family, one of his best friends Daniel, and one our best friends, He was thrilled to go out on the town with no baby in tow and just have a fabulous little time. And it was comforting knowing Charlotte was just down the street with Aunt Bare... you know, in case she had a meltdown that couldn't be fixed :)

Sunday we woke up and had a fabulous lunch and then we had planned to go to the zoo but it started raining and we had to go back home. Even though we didn't get to follow through with everything, we still had an awesome time!