Saturday, January 1, 2011

Thanksgiving--better late than never

Maybe I kept putting off posting about this because it was such a crazy day. . .

It started off well-ish. Um, I think that might be an overstatement.
We all got up early to run the Fort Worth Turkey Trot--a family tradition. It was bitterly cold and bitterly windy as a front moved in during the morning. We tried to load up quickly, but, Luke made the unfortunate decision to unlatch Will's car seat from the car. If you have never tried to install a car seat into a car that is not LATCH (that is an acronym for some sort of safety feature) equipped, let me just tell you it is a major PAIN.

We started out almost fifteen minutes ahead of schedule but it took us nearly fifteen minutes to get the darn thing back in. Grrrr.

We brushed off our feelings of frustration quickly and got the boys excited for the trot.


The wind was getting colder and colder. Will was bundled in the traditional reindeer suit. Breakfast was served in the strollers, and we started making a bee-line for the starting line.  Everyone was still happy. . .


. . . until we actually crossed the starting line. Once we made the trek to the starting area (a good trek because we were late and had to park far away) and actually started the 5K, Will got very upset. I don't know what it was--perhaps he was cold, perhaps he was tired, maybe he just doesn't like turkeys. We tried to push on for a little thinking he would settle down, but he didn't. The more attention Will got, the more attention Luke wanted, so, whatever Will did that scored attention, Luke copied it.  That means, that Will screaming loud = Luke screaming loud, Will throwing cup/cheerios/mittens = Luke throwing cup/cheerios/mittens. At one point I got Will out of his stroller to carry him thinking it would settle him. It didn't, and then Luke wanted out of his. We said no to Luke which caused him to pitch a fit and fight to get out to the point that he was basically standing on the ground while still strapped into the stroller.

So we bailed--or at least tried to. We got off the course thinking we could shortcut it back to our car and get the he!! out of there, but as it turns out, we made it to the furthest possible point on the route. We ended up walking parallel to the actual course for most of the trek. When the race route crossed ours, we just joined up and hightailed it to the end. Once I had realized that carrying Will made no difference in the screaming, I just plopped him back in the stroller and ran. It actually was a little to my advantage as the wailing worked like a siren and parted the sea of turkey trotters.

Gene and I got split up at this point, but at the end I found my sister--who was split up from her hubby as well. Kim, Will, and I headed back to our car. When we got there Gene and Luke had already made it and were waiting on us.  We located Kim's hubby and got them back together and then drove home. Will passed out the minute the car started moving and slept all the way home and then continued to sleep until we got him up to go to my parents house for lunch.

By lunchtime he was all smiles.

Will loving on cousin Zoe.


And scamming Aunt Kim out of her pumpkin pie.


The afternoon was a big improvement over the morning--but really, that wasn't too hard to accomplish.

The next weekend we celebrated with some of Gene's family.  It was a beautiful day and the boys spent much of the day outside. Will, again loving on a cousin, and getting to go for a swing ride. Luke had fun raking up the leaves and jumping in the pile.



Cousin Alecia joined in for some leafy fun.


A few days later, I took some cutie pie pictures of Will in our backyard while Luke was throwing a temper tantrum inside. Whoever said two's are bad never made it to three. Soon he will be four, we are starting to see the light already.

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