More December....

In mid-December Carleen (my sis) graduated with honors from nursing school at Duke! My family, Grady and I attended the pinning ceremony, and Brandon and Landon met up with us all later for a celebratory dinner. She was offered a job at Duke as a labor and delivery nurse and will be starting in late February. Congrats Carleen!

Grady did some artwork during the ceremony. :)

That same week Grady had a Christmas performance at preschool. While he didn't really sing during the performance, he did a great job playing the drum during one song (and smiled a lot)! We can't really blame him for not singing....he has two parents who were also pretty shy as kids! :) 

A Spontaneous Trip!

About two weeks ago, we spontaneously decided to take a trip to Florida! The idea began as an email conversation between Brandon and I about how we'd love to get away that weekend to somewhere warm.... That was then followed by an email to Kelly saying, "What are you guys up to this weekend?" That was Wednesday evening, and Friday morning we left! It's not often you can be that spontaneous with two little kids, so we were pretty proud of ourselves for doing this! We stayed for four nights and had a great time! What is even better is that we didn't have to pack our usual baby gear (stroller, high chair, etc.) because Kelly and Louis have everything....that is a definite plus! So, in addition to going somewhere warm, we go to visit with Kelly, Louis and our precious little niece Hannah (who we hadn't seen since August)! Grady, Landon and Hannah had a great time playing together as always.

On Saturday we went to the farmer's market where Louis was selling fruit for Schacht Groves, then went to a fun Carolina Club game-watching party (organized by Kelly and Louis), and then went to downtown Vero Beach for the Christmas parade. The floats were very impressive, and we had a great time!

Hannah loves walking around now!



This was after Grady had a blue lollipop!

On Sunday, Kelly and I took the kids to the art museum because they were having a special Christmas event. They all ended up getting to sit on Santa's lap, and Grady even had some time alone with Santa afterwards to tell him what he wanted (a watch and a "car racer").

Here we are taking a snack break while Grady did some arts and crafts!

Brandon spent Sunday and Monday helping Louis out in the packing house since this is their busiest time of year. If you have never tasted Schacht Groves fruit you definitely need to! They have the best oranges and grapefruit we've ever had (and we're not just saying that). In fact, Grady won't even eat oranges from the grocery store now because he says he doesn't like them. He says he only likes Uncle Louis' oranges. Visit their web site at http://www.schachtgroves.com/ if you would like to order some fruit! :)

This is an effort to contain Landon and Hannah in the packing house! Didn't last long!

Grady absolutely loved packing fruit!

Here he is monitoring the store....

Thanksgiving in Pinehurst!

We had a second Thanksgiving celebration in Pinehurst last weekend and got to see a lot of family from all over, which was great! (Thanks for all the great food Mimi!) :)  The boys had a great time as always!

Grady loved reading books with Michelle. :)

We went over to the Pinehurst Hotel the day after to look at all the pretty Christmas decorations. This was of course an ideal setting for a Christmas card picture....thanks to everyone who endured the long photo shoot!

Prior to going to Pinehurst, we put our Christmas tree up and decorated. Grady of course loved it, and Landon thought the idea of the tree was pretty neat too. He loved taking ornaments off the tree and bringing them to us, which is really cute. (Don't worry...all the breakable ornaments are out of his reach!)

Thanksgiving in the Mountains!

We celebrated Thanksgiving last weekend in Boone with Brandon's family and had a great time! Landon faced forward for the first time in his carseat on the drive up to the mountains, so that was pretty exciting!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner (thanks Granny!) with Granny, Gramps, Scott and Charlotte.

After dinner we had another birthday celebration for Landon. Granny made him a chocolate cake with chocolate icing (which did not have milk according to the ingredients), and Landon LOVED it (and we are happy to report that there was no allergic reaction)! I think he would have eaten the whole cake if we let him!

Here are some other pictures from our weekend in Boone!



Here Grady is with Annie!



Here Grady is playing with cars/trucks that were Brandon's and Scott's when they were little!

This is one of my favorite pictures....what an amazing view! (Landon seems to think so too.)

We went to a great park on Sunday, and Grady and Landon had so much fun! They especially enjoyed playing in the model town.

Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Goodbye Sweet Dirkins....

While we celebrated Landon's 1st birthday this past weekend, we also lost a dear member of our family. Our sweet little cat - Dirkins - unexpectedly passed away Saturday night after being attacked outside. Despite our efforts to save her, she died during the night at the emergency vet clinic. This blog is all about our family, and she was definitely a part of us - one of the "Thomas Kiddos-" so I wanted to properly honor her on our blog. She was only 7 years old, and we miss her terribly and have been having a very hard time. I got her when she was a kitten from the Charlotte Humane Society... Brandon and I picked her out together when we were dating - he actually "bought" her for me, so the deal was he got to name her. She was an incredibly sweet cat and one that I completely trusted around Grady and Landon. She would never scratch them (even when their "playing" was pulling her tail, etc.), and often times when we had a hysterical baby/toddler (for whatever reason) Dirkins was the only one that could calm them down. We would actually go looking for her in those situations, and that always did the trick to distract them. She had a very quirky and funny personality, which is what made her so unique. The place she loved in our house was the upstairs hallway and stairs (for some reason), and we always joked that whenever we walked anywhere, she was right under our feet doing figure eights. She was also always my special buddy when I was nursing the boys during the night....we were always up together when the rest of the house was asleep, and she loved following Brandon all over the house (including to the closet and the bathroom) when he was getting ready in the morning. She had such a presence in our family, so our house feels really empty now without her. We love and miss you Dirkins and will never forget you!

 

Landon's 1st Birthday!

Landon turned 1 on Nov. 11! He went to the doctor yesterday for his 1-year check-up...he's now 22 lbs, 1 oz and is just about 32 inches tall. What that tells us is that he's very tall and slender - and growing perfectly! :) We are always thankful for good check-ups.


As he was practically running up and down the hallway in the doctor's office (and getting into everything...the trash can, all the exam rooms, etc.) the doctor commented that he seems more like a 15-month-old than a 12-month-old! Not sure if that is a good or bad thing! :)  He's a very happy little guy though, so his "very active" demeanor is just fine with us! You can also tell from this picture that he already has bottom molars, so he has a total of 10 teeth (soon to be 12 since his top molars are coming in now)....a little bit ahead of schedule in the teeth department!

Since his actual birthday was during the week, we decided to celebrate with an official party this past weekend. Mimi, Popeye, Ma, Carleen and Kevin came for the party, and Landon had a great time! I decided to make his cake because it's just easier to make things yourself when you have a child with an allergy - then you know exactly what goes in it. Somehow I decided on a turtle cake (mostly because it was really basic), and I even substituted bananas for eggs just in case he had an egg sensitivity that we weren't aware of. Needless to say, after all of that he ate about three bites of icing, smeared it into his hair and was done. :) It was still worth it though! Here are some pictures from his party... (He will be having another birthday party at Granny and Gramps' house next weekend!)





Grady helped Landon blow out his candle!



It was getting a little late at this point, so Landon was pretty much over it by this point!



Grady also "helped" Landon open all of his presents! Good thing Landon didn't know the difference!

He perked up when he got this present from Kelly, Louis and Hannah!



The boys loved playing in their new kitchen from Mimi and Popeye! (I told them that girls love guys that cook, so we're training them early!)