Craziest drive of my life

We came home to Nebraska to celebrate the holiday with Ryan's family.  We were so excited for Will's first trip to NE although hesitant about the plane ride.  We departed early from Seattle and arrived in Omaha in the afternoon.  Will was an amazing little flyer.  He slept the whole first flight and Ryan and I even managed to catch up on sleep.  We had a very short layover in Denver and Will stayed awake for most of the ride to Omaha, falling asleep for the last 20 minutes or so. Praise God that he was such a good boy!  

After spending the night at a friend's house in Omaha, we made the trek to Kearney - a 2 1/2 hour drive.  We were really worried the weather wouldn't hold and it almost didn't.  We had been checking the weather reports and were expecting to encounter snow and ice on our drive.  With about 30 miles to go, we ran into the craziest weather I've experienced.  It began raining tiny hail balls that covered the interstate in a slick sheet of white.  Impossible to see the lanes, cars and semis began slowing.  Suddenly lightning struck.  Yes, lightening in December. Freaky stuff.  At this point I had my head in my lap practically hyperventilating and praying that God would get us to Kearney safely.  Unfortunately for us, the ice and snow worsened the farther west you traveled.  And of course, we were west-bound.  The only advantage we had was that we were driving with Ryan's brother, Drew, and his girlfriend in his very heavy Jeep weighed down with Christmas gifts and luggage.  The lightning kept appearing and the ice continued to fall, and we approached "freezing fog."  I didn't even know that existed.  If you've ever driven at night when it's snowing and foggy, you know that headlight are oftentimes a disadvantage.  Not fun.  Mile by mile our exit neared and we arrived safely to Ryan's parents house.  PRAISE GOD! 

He keeps growing, and growing....and growing.

Will at 5 1/2 months

Will is pushing 6 months already. 6 months! I cannot believe it's been that long since he was born! It has gone by so quickly and I can only hope that the next 6 months drag on. He's grown in so many ways. Obviously he's grown physically, he's almost 20 lbs and wearing clothes that are made for babies twice his age. He's become much more vocal...often cooing back at us when we speak to him. It's really so sweet. Sometimes I swear he's actually saying words. He's also really trying to crawl. When we lay him down on the floor to play he pretty much immediately rolls over to his tummy and kicks his legs and sticks his butt in the air. I didn't know babies could do that at this age and in some ways it makes me sad. Of course I want him to crawl...but at the same time I don't want him to gain his independence too quickly. (We still need to "baby proof" the house!) With how strong he is in his legs he may just as well walk before he crawls. His bouncer thing has really given the bottom half of his little body a mini work-out. Plus, having a house with no carpet might do a toll on his little knees so walking might actually be easier for him. I guess only time will tell. For now, I'll just enjoy his non-mobility by endlessly snuggling with him and he'll have no choice but to take it! :)

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving Weekend full of family time, visitors, and of course FOOD. On Thursday we enjoyed brunch at our neighbor's house in the morning and the rest of the day was spent relaxing, playing Scrabble (our favorite!), and making cinnamon rolls - which turned out to be very yummy. rolling out dough for my first cinnamon rolls

Friday was spent shopping, as I tried to find the best deals I could. I realized that I should have gotten up earlier when I went to Wal-Mart at 9am and all the things I had on my list were already sold out. Booo! But I managed to find some other good deals at Old Navy, Michael's and Costco. Every year I remind myself to get up at 5am and score some sweet deals, and every year I sleep past 5 and miss out. Next year will be MY year for shopping. :) Mom and Parker came up on Friday night to spend some time with us. Will loves Parker, he just stares at him and smiles or laughs at whatever silly thing he's doing. We did some cooking and Parker and I did a "pretzel project." (Dipping pretzels into white chocolate and covering them with sprinkles.) He loved sprinking them and of course eating them!

Sunday we had a big dinner with Dad and Tina and Nika who came up from Portland. Keturah came down with Clark and we had a turkey dinner that afternoon. This was my first time cooking a turkey which is funny since I'm a vegetarian. Let's just say it was a learning experience. I was nervous about doing it "right." Since we have no meat thermometer, it was difficult to tell if the bird was cooked through. So we took it out after 4 hours and Ryan started to carve it. It wasn't done. But he still cut up the meat and we nuked it. Everyone said it was yummy, but I think they were just being polite. Next year: Tofurkey. (tofo "turkey") apparently Trader Joe's has them. So we'll see about that. All the other food turned out to be delicious and we all chowed down.

The Food!

The partially cooked Tom the Turkey
Dad and Will

All the kids were pretty excited about getting "under" Will's playmat to play with their youngest cousin.

And here's Will, picking on Parker.