Don't Stop Believin': Ethan

What a fantastic weekend! Our dear friends, the Tenney family, came for a quick visit on their way to visit Jen's family in Florida for Christmas. Before they made it to Charlotte, we all met in Salisbury, NC with another of our friends from middle school, Jennifer (I still think of her as Jennifer Magoon even though she has been married for a number of years now!) so that we could take the kids on the Santa Train. It was wonderful to all be able to get together again. I realized during this visit that Jennifer does not live too far from my in-laws so hopefully we'll be able to get together a little more frequently in the future.

Ethan did really well on the 45 minute drive to the Santa Train and slept the majority of the way. He woke up once we arrived so he missed about an hour or so of his nap, but he seemed to be in pretty good spirits so I wasn't too terribly worried about it. Of course, feeding time was quickly approaching so I wasn't sure how he would act. I brought a bottle with me, but this child practically refuses to take a bottle from me. When I offered it to him on the train he was acting like it was choking him (even though he takes the exact bottle from Patrick without an issue from time to time) and kept pulling on my sweater. I had to break it to him that I was not about to nurse publically, with or without a nursing cover, so this bottle was as good as it was going to get. This prompted a big cry, and I kept looking around to see who was staring at the idiot who brought a 4 month old on the train. Nobody seemed to be giving me evil glares (thank goodness for the loud Christmas music that was playing!) but I was relieved to get Ethan back into the car where at least if he decided to howl only I would be subjected to it. He promptly fell asleep for the entire ride back as well (even though he now had not eaten in almost 6 hours.) At least the car trips were uneventful...if only he hadn't decided to lose it on the train!

Later that night we did our Christmas gift exchange with the Tenneys and I cannot wait to put Ethan in his new clothes from his Aunt Jen and Uncle Patrick. They are soooooo adorable. I will be posting pics as soon as the clothes are out of the dryer (yes, I already have them washed and ready!) It was a quick visit, but they'll be back on their return trip to WV and I cannot wait.

Patrick is on vacation this entire week, so I am enjoying having some time at home with both of my boys. All Christmas gifts have been purchased, wrapped and shipped so we can really just relax and enjoy hanging out this week. I have several Christmas treats I am going to make - thumbprint cookies, chocolate delight cookies, cherry bars and brown sugar shortbread and I am so excited about being a domestic diva this year. There is something so special about this time of year and to get to introduce Ethan to all of our family traditions (and make up some new ones) has made this especially fun. I'll try to keep the updates timely this week as we prepare to celebrate Ethan's very first Christmas.

I LOVE this (if only I had thought to grab Ethan out of his carrier it would have been complete!) We attended middle school together and now here we are 20 years and 3 kids later!