After The Tenth..... When The Fun Really Begins

The biggest surprise of our Thanksgiving trip, besides the fact that dad made breakfast, was that Macy essentially left Florida as a toddler and came back as a little girl. I can't explain whether it was the cold temperatures, the attention she got from the family or if it was just coincidental, but she seemed to mature right before our eyes.

The trip north was full of fun times and especially spending the holiday at Aunt Kim and Uncle Adam's place. I have to admit that coming home for the holiday and not spending it at my parent's place felt a bit unusual, but once we got to their house it just felt...well it just felt right. Besides taking on the Sznitken clan, which can be challenging enough, they also had the DeGraff's which meant that we were a big, big table of hungry mouths. It was a lot of fun watching Macy play with Matty (Kim's Brother's son---also known as Adam's nephew) You'll see in a couple of the pictures below that Macy really enjoys the DeGraff men. (That's Matty she's mauling in front of the white chair.)

You might notice a picture below that is Macy standing next to a Pine Tree. My parent's neighbor had recently planted a new tree in the space between their houses. We had this idea that we would take a picture of Macy next to this tree each year, so we could track how both of them grow. Seems like a cute idea, but let's see if next year's photos include one of the Van Nostrand pine.

Thanksgiving was also a big holiday for Laney...though I should probably say that Laney was big for the holiday. Travelling with two kids under two is not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but thanks to Laney's advanced size there was one thing that was easier this time than ever before. We now only have to worry about packing one size of diapers since the girls are now both using the same ones. As we left for the holiday, we received confirmation that Laney was now within 4 pounds of Macy and closing fast. As we dressed our little Chumbawamba (my new nickname for her) each morning, we reminisced about how the outfit she was wearing for Thanksgiving was the same one Macy had worn last Christmas. For the math challenged, that means Laney is wearing Macy's 12 month clothes at 6 months.

It was also during this trip that we realized Macy had inherited grandma's love of photography, though she hasn't been able to duplicate grandma's talent for it. I have a memory card full of pictures of area rugs, people's ankles, and a random knee or two.

As always, we tried to visit Jefferson's Ferry a much as possible, to see GG and Aunt Anne. As you might have guessed, the girls were quite the hit as we paraded them around. I have to admit that I might have walked around the place a little more than usual...to let many of the resident's get some holiday joy from them. It might have appeared that I was enjoying showing them off and getting the attention, but that really wasn't the case; I promise.

I had a plan for how I was going to cover our Thanksgiving trip but that went out the window when something quite surprising occurred one morning. Grandpa made breakfast for us. Let me repeat that because of how unusual that statement is to type...Grandpa made breakfast for us.

One morning he volunteered (which really means: goaded;peer pressured; guilted into; was forced) to make breakfast for everyone. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we had green pancakes. Ok, that's really more a Christmas theme and a Thanksgiving theme..but how cool are green pancakes?

 We were so wowed by the moment, that we ran to get the camera and took a few hurried photos before the moment passed.

While we are speaking of Grandpa, I should mention how much fun Macy and Laney had with him. You'll even see that one morning while dropping him off at the train station Macy was so into it, that we had to go onto the train before it pulled out of the station. Macy was so impressed by the whole thing that if you ask her how her grandfather gets to work, she'll tell you that he takes the "choo-choo" and hence his new name: Papa Choo Choo

Holy Cow...I can't believe that I just noticed that my Thanksgiving post was never actually published..it has just been sitting here in it's "draft" status since we got back. That's what I might say if I was going to try and lie to you, but I'm not. (Girls..here's a lesson from your daddy about telling the truth.)

I know that Thanksgiving was ages ago. I mean not only is it no longer November; Christmas has also passed, taking December with it. Regardless, I'm man enough to admit that I just procrastinated on this and there is no good reason for this post being so late.

Now that I got that out of the way, let me tell you about part our Thanksgiving trip to New York. If someone had bet me on whether we would be going to a park in New York during Thanksgiving week, I would have lost a lot of money. I never could have guessed that the weather would be so nice that we would go not once, but twice.

I've culled through the virtual stacks and stacks of photos that Grandma and I took and tried to narrow down the list to a manageable amount. This was quite the daunting task since our trip was longer than the usual extended weekend. I had some extra time off this year so we decided to try and avoid the typical travel days, which just added to the collection of photos.

One afternoon we headed over to the playground at the Holbrook Commons where we had the place to ourselves right up until the last few moments and the second day we hit the playground at the Brookhaven Wildlife & Ecology Center. (which we didn't get to do this summer) As you might have guessed, Macy enjoys the park more than Laney and therefore dominates the park pictures. But have no fear, Laney fans, the next post includes photos from around the house and Laney dominated those photo shoots.

You'll see that both girls really enjoyed their time at the parks. Macy especially likes slides, going down both feet first and head first and Laney even enjoyed a few moments on the swing. As we headed back to the car, Macy got to enjoy the fun of playing with the piles and piles of leaves, something we don't really get in Florida.