thanksgiving full of family

My Thanksgiving was grand. I had two aunt, four cousins, and two significant others fly in from various parts of the country to stay at my parents' house in Alabama. So altogether we had fourteen people under one roof. I've got a plethora of pics to post (ha) tomorrow, but for now I just wanted to do a quick recap, along with a group shot.

This Thanksgiving:

• We ate and ate and ate. I was rather touched by how much effort various family members put into making sure I had dairy-free things to eat. I actually got to eat stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cupcakes, brownies, and a cherry/pineapple dump cake.
• We drank and drank and drank. Well, I had a little and most everyone else had a lot.
• Lots of games were played. The hubs and I discovered a few news ones to add to our collection. I hope G grows up with a love of playing card and board games. It's just what my family does!
• Cousin Binky is getting married next October, so we got to gab about that.
• The hubs and I actually stayed up till 11!
• G actually slept till 6:30 two nights and 7 one night
• Speaking of G, his screeching noises have only gotten louder. I think he upped the volume over the last four days to hear himself over a full house, and then he's forgotten how to tone the volume down now that it's just the three of us again. So ear-piercing. He's also discovered his feet (a little).

So thankful that everyone got to meet G. Also thankful to see the family banding together in the wake of my aunt passing away earlier this year. I didn't get to be involved with the funeral or the get-together to celebrate cousin Alex's graduation, so I was eager to spend time with everyone. I'll get to see them again when we travel to Miami next October for the wedding. G will get to meet his other great-grandparents.

From left to right: (front) Grayson, me, my mom, Loretta (big Alex's wife); (back) Paul (Steve's boyfriend), cousin Steve, aunt Marlene, cousin Binky, the hubs, my dad, cousin Alex, my brother Manny, cousin Alex, and aunt Poti.

What a damn fine lookin' bunch!

Oh, so G didn't poop for almost three days while we were away. It was the longest he'd gone without pooping. It's scary when he only poops once a day because it's huge, so we knew it would be bad. This morning, he finally pooped a decent amount. We thought that meant the Missing Poop Adventure was over. However, on the way back to Nashville, within 10-15 minutes of leaving the house, there he went with the I'm-poopin-now face. And he kept on and on. I was sitting next to him and the smell was awful.

We pulled over as soon as we could, and it was horrible! In fact, Dave's face of horror as he peeled off the layers of sticky clothing actually scared G. Poor baby. It was cold with a fierce wind, and we had to take off all his clothes with him laying in the driver's seat with the door open. Poop everywhere! The biggest poop ever! We cleaned him up the best we could, put on new clothes, and got him warmed back up. I think he must've felt bad (or tired himself out) because he slept all the way home, over two hours. In fact, he was so out that I stopped and picked up some diapers.

He was in a fantastic mood when we got home, even though we had to wake him up. Of course, that was until we both accidentally clipped his fingers while trying to cut his nails. He's so squirmy, so I'm kinda at a loss as to what to do about those nails. He keeps scratching his face, and just using an emery board doesn't work too well.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. Off to edit more pictures for tomorrow's post.