Our Weekend & Randoms

We had a great Thanksgiving and have been blessed with a lot of family time this past week!

John went to work Monday, was home sick Tuesday. I was afraid he had the flu, and he might have, but he had the flu shot so if it was the flu it was a lesser strain and he got over it quickly. Wednesday he knew not much would be going on in the office so he took off and we went and did some shopping for Christmas before heading home to start cooking for Thanksgiving. Part of what we were hunting for was a Thanksgiving outfit for Cora. I'd been hunting previously but I put it off too long so all we could find was a bib (that we paid too much for).

We kicked off Wednesday morning with a Thanksgiving Story Time at the library where Cora Mommy made an adorable paper turkey puppet.

Thanksgiving Day we went and celebrated with my Dad's family about an hour from home. It's always so nice to gather everyone together! We of course forgot the bib at home so once we got back home and had Cora Bug in her PJs I tried to snap a picture of her in the bib but she resisted (just way too tired to cooperate!).

Black Friday we slept in! Then we started the hunt for Cora's trampoline for Christmas, after three stores we finally found it. We headed home for John to do some house work/repairs and I got ready and headed off to Ennis for my soon to be sister-in-love's shower. John kept Cora and they had a Daddy-Daughter shopping trip to buy his Christmas gift for me (I think he may have gotten her ice cream while they were out too!).

The drive to Ennis was a bit of an epic disaster. I was driving Joshua's old standard truck, Jacob needed me to transport 4 huge pillars for wedding decorations to Ennis and it's the only vehicle we have they'd fit in. So it's already difficult enough driving a standard truck through Dallas traffic (I can do it, it just requires way more thought!) but to add to the trouble Robert had been driving the truck a couple of weeks ago and somehow managed to knock the passenger side mirror off the truck! So I had a load in the back giving me only partial use of my rear-view mirror and no right side mirror. Changing lanes was awful! I was already running late because I'd had a major brain fart and I totally forgot that the drive to their house is almost 2 hours, not 1. For some reason I had it in my head that it was a 1 hour 15 minute drive. I just didn't give myself enough drive time, like at all... Then in the middle of a series of exits to get from I35 to 45 my stupid phone decided to screw up and it just shut off! I exited and pulled off to mess with figuring out what the phones problem was because I couldn't drive, shift and mess with the stupid thing. I got it to come back on but couldn't get my GPS to pull back up at all or come up with a signal to make a call for directions. I literally drove around downtown Dallas until I saw a sign for 45, got on praying it was the right direction, took a small detour off onto I20 (no clue how I managed that...), but 2 hours and 30 minutes after I left Sanger I was so pleased to finally pull up at Stephanie's sisters house! I got there by memory after only having been there once! 

Saturday was a day of housework. John and Jacob spent all morning and the better part of the afternoon working at our house while I kept Cora at Dad's and worked on decorating his house for Christmas when I wasn't playing with Coralie.
Trying to decorate a kid proof tree has proven to be difficult. We aren't putting anything glass up this year, so I'm having to dig in the attic for our childhood ornaments and other child appropriate decorations. So far Cora has been very good about leaving the tree alone, probably the only thing she leaves alone at my Dad's house!

I intentionally cut the top of the tree off in the picture because our Angel is currently sideways on the tree and refuses to stand up!

Sunday was a regular Sunday for us. Church, lunch, a little shopping followed by a nap and family time.

What was eventful was that we got our first dirty looks in a store over what Cora was doing. She has recently learned that she can express her displeasure in something by being loud. She'll just say "Ahhhhhhh" loudly - like yelling. It's not shrill like a scream but it's plenty loud and obnoxious. She unfortunately does not understand "shhhh" or "inside voices" though we're actively trying to teach her. So, in the Target Christmas section when she was upset that I wouldn't let her drink from my cup from lunch she looked at us both and yelled at us. We were both working to shush her and deal with the situation (and honestly it could have been so much louder!) and this grumpy man and woman across from us stopped what they were doing to stare at us disapprovingly. I noticed them and continued working to shush her, but when I glanced up again to see that they were still glaring I stopped working with Cora (John continued shushing etc) and proceeded to glare them down. I mean seriously?!? She wasn't screaming and she's a baby! We were obviously trying to deal with the situation (and I refuse to spank for anything that she's learning or isn't willful disobedience) so my thought is if you can't help then back off! Ignore us and move on! It was our first incident of being a public nuisance in a store in 13 months so I consider that to be a win! And as for that couple, I really don't care, I know I was doing my job as a mom - I just get so frustrated with people sticking their noses where they don't belong. :)

How was your Thanksgiving?

How do you handle "incidents" in the store with kiddos?