Happy Thanksgiving and Hello Winter!

We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with Justin's family this year. We went to his Aunt Carol's for lunch. She is a wonderful host! Anyone that can handle over 30 people year after year has to be a saint! Unfortunately, we had to cut our day short because Clayton was fussy and we were pretty sure he was running a fever. We came back home on Friday and made a doctor's appointment for the next day. Sure enough he has a sinus infection. :( The little guy is a trooper, but he just isn't his normal cheerful self. I was able to get all of our Christmas decorations up on Friday and Justin got our Christmas tree today. I can't believe Christmas is only a few weeks away! Clayton is looking forward to going to great grandma and grandpas farm this year. We woke up this morning with a couple of inches of snow on the ground. We were just excited to have snow and not ice, like they usually get in St. Louis. Well, the Bears game is on so I will cut this short. Hope everyone had a great week.

Shannon and I on Thanksgiving

Justin, Uncle Drake, soon to be Uncle Dave and Clayton on Thanksgiving. Notice the rosy cheeks!

Leslie got Clayton this adorable cow towel! He loves the tail!

Clayton couldn't go outside to enjoy his first snow, but he wore his "Let it Snow" outfit that Nana and Grandpa got him.

Keely was enjoying the snow. Notice we were up pretty early this morning, hence the darkness. :)

Clayton gets caught "sharing" his vegetables with Keely! (Hummm, wonder who taught him that?? Maybe Daddy or Uncle David???)

Deals, Coupons and FREE STUFF

Ok, so I know there are quite a few moms, wives etc. that check this blog. I had to share a site I heard about on the news down here. I will post the link at the bottom of this post. There is a mother here in St. Louis who used to be a social worker and is now a stay at home mom. She wanted to find ways to contribute financially to her family, so she started clipping coupons, finding rebates, asking for free stuff, etc. She decided to "pay it forward" by putting this all on a website. You don't have to live here in St. Louis to take advantage of a lot of the things she posts. She puts up the codes for the free red box movie at McDonald's you can get on Mondays. She has all the Black Friday ads, etc. I am already getting loads of coupons and got a free Medela bottle to use for pumping. I also found a website, restaurant.com. You can get $25 gift certificates to restaurants for as little as $3. You have to read the fine print because some of them can't be used on Fridays and Saturdays or can't be used on alcohol. I got some great deals though. I thought I would share since these days it can't hurt to save a few pennys! Enjoy!

http://www.stlmommy.com/

http://www.restaurant.com/

Clayton eats his Avocado!

After Clayton's waiting period to make sure he didn't have a reaction to the rice cereal, we have moved on to the next food Avocados! I learned that some say humans could live on avocados as a sole source of nutrition! :) Does that mean we should eat more guacamole? YUMMY I don't know if Clayton could because he wasn't to excited with the first go around tonight. (Excuse the darkness and Justin's commentary! :)

I posted twice tonight so scroll down for more!

Big Sis and More Food!

Where has the week gone? I have been pretty good at keeping up on posts, but slacked this week! I apparently didn't take any pictures last weekend when we went to Champaign for the Illinois vs. Ohio State football game. Looking back it may have been a subconscious way to forget the whole game! :) Thank you grandpa for not rubbing it in too much that the Buckeyes beat us! Clayton and I had a great time hanging out with Great-Grandma in Aunt Anna's warm apartment, while Daddy, Grandpa, Nana, Aunt Anna, Uncle David and Great-Grandpa went to the game. On Sunday we went to Justin's grandparents to celebrate their birthdays. Clayton had a busy week this week with Physical Therapy on Thursday. Lori said he is doing great and should be sitting up and playing by him self by Christmas. Oh Boy, Mommy isn't sure she is ready for that! We have been able to hang out a lot this weekend. I did get our honeymoon photo album put together. :) Ok, so I was a little behind on that. We are going to the Bears vs. Rams football game tomorrow with Jen and Jason. If the Bears lose to the Rams I think we might have to change teams! I mean the Rams are soooo horrible.

So we have to mention that last week was Keely's first week of being able to be out of her kennel the whole day while we are at work. I know she loves that someone is home every day of the week except Mondays and Tuesdays. I felt horrible having her in the kennel on the other days even though Justin comes home for lunch. We had started leaving her out and letting her have run of the hallway and guest bedroom when we went on errands, etc. We worked up to letting her out the whole day and she did great! It is pretty funny though because in the morning she pushes the curtain to the side to watch you leave. Then when I get home and pull in the drive way before I can even open the garage, there she is looking out the window. Clayton is so proud of his big sis!

Clayton hanging out with his big sis!

Clayton eating his Avocado.

I took a picture of the house on a nice fall day. (Just in case we want to sell it sometime) :)

Big Boy Food!

Clayton before food

Clayton eating his first bites.

Clayton after eating.


The doctors at Childrens gave us the ok for Clayton to start some food. He will be 7 months tomorrow, 5 1/2 months corrected age. We were so excited to feed him tonight we forgot a bib, so he got some food on his new PJs that Nana got for him. Tonight he ate some rice cereal. We will see how that goes for a couple of days and then start some other foods. I am going to be making his food, so Justin and I will be eating lots more fresh veggies here soon! Big thanks to Amanda for the Baby Super Foods book. I might not be a good cook for Justin and I, but I am going to be a baby food aficionado!

Check Below for some more posts from today and Sunday.

Trip to Childrens Hospital

Clayton and Blue sitting on the Peacock at Childrens.

Mommy and Clayton waiting for his eye exam.

Daddy and Clayton waiting for his doctors appt.


Clayton had his follow up at Childrens last Wednesday. We were able to see some of his fabulous nurses, his nurse practitioner and his doctor! (Clayton asked were Ali was) We miss them, but we are so glad we are at home. Clayton was a very good boy for his appointments. The doctors said he looked great and that we would come back in 6 more months to have another follow up.

On the Road Again: To Tennessee

Clayton, Justin and I in front of the Distillery.

Anna, David, Justin, Clayton and I with Jack Daniels

The Distillery in Lynchburg

Clayton looks at Daddy's cake. He wants some soooo bad.

Clayton and Daddy on Justin's Birthday

Well, we are on our way home today. We surprised Justin for his birthday and went to Lynchburg, TN to go to the Jack Daniels distillery. We left on Friday, picked Anna and David up in Effingham and then traveled on to Nashville. We had such a great time. The fall colors were beautiful and the weather couldn't have been better on Saturday. (Especially since Great Grandma and Grandpa got snow this weekend) I think Justin and David were disappointed that Lynchburg is in a "dry county" so they didn't get to do any tastings. They made up for it at the Embassy Suites happy hour though. :) After not having had a drink going on 15 months, just sniffing the barrell of Jack was great to me! We hope that Anna and David will want to road trip with us again!

I need to get our Children's Hospital update up, those are on my camera and I don't have the cord so I will try to get them up tonight or tomorrow!

Beautiful Fall Day!

Today was a beautiful fall day! I am thankful for everyday I have at home with Clayton, but days like this are super special. Keely, Clayton and I took a nice walk and I brought Clayton out to play in the leaves and with his first pumpkin from Grandma B. Clayton as with most things these days wanted to put them in his mouth! The Fall is Justin and I's favorite time of the year and we couldn't ask for a better one than we are having this year. Who would think it would be in the mid 70s on November 5th?

Children's Hospital Here We Come

Tomorrow we are headed to Children's Hospital for Clayton's follow-up appointment. It is hard to believe he will be 7 months old next week and hasn't been at Children's for almost 6 months. He has gained at least 8 pounds since we left and is turning into such a cute little man. We are so excited to see everyone. I will update everyone tomorrow on how things go.

I also wanted to put a couple misc. pictures up.

Clayton hanging out on Aunt Anna and Uncle David's couch!

This is how a typical day looks when I am home with Keely and Clayton. Nap time usually involves both of them on my lap. I had to do some tricky photography to snap this.

Clayton Goes to the Polls!

Clayton Sports his "I Voted" Sticker!

Clayton headed to the polls with Justin and I this morning. He was quite excited about his first election. Ok, maybe he was excited because he knew he would get a sticker! :) Mommy and Daddy told him tonight that we may all just move to Alaska and maybe they will become their own nation! :) Clayton would love playing with his bud Trigg.

Trick or Treat!

Clayton was a Moo Moo for Halloween!

We had a wonderful weekend in Champaign. Clayton dressed up as a cow for Halloween. He actually only had the outfit on for about 10 min, since it was about 75 degrees that night, but he was soooo cute. Thanks Lori for letting us borrow! We had a great time at the football game and Clayton enjoyed his two babysitters (Anna & David). He did say David was sleeping on the job a little. :) More later, have a great week everyone!