First Thanksgiving

No pictures at the moment but lots of news. First, we are back from our trip to Boise for Thanksgiving. It was fairly successful. We were happy to be there and happy to be home, at least, and I call that success.

Down moments: Zeke's inability to nap if there is anything interesting going on. This is a rather pain at home but even worse when we aren't at home, as you can imagine. It could have been worse, I suppose. The first day at Kathleen's he napped very well, and he always did great at night as soon as Josh or I were in bed with him. I think for Christmas I will just have to be more mindful that traveling is exciting and lay down with him every afternoon at the quietest available moment. This trip we where so busy that I tried to get him to nap on the go or in a back room of a noisy house by himself and it just doesnt work.
The drive back. We didnt leave until after 2, so well over half of the drive was in the dark, the sun set at about 4. One passenger in the car did NOT enjoy that. I tried to refrain from telling my husband that I had TOLD him we shouldn't go to church on Sunday because if we left too late the drive would be miserable. Zeke does great on these long drives in the mornings. I succeeded through the first 2 hours of screaming, then to my shame went into an "I told you so" rant.
Zeke is still overwhelmed by lots of new faces at once, people that put their faces really close to his face, and really loud people. I just described our families.

Good moments: The drive there. Zeke was so good and patient. In 7 hours we only stopped twice and he never got cranky. He played mostly by himself with his crochet hook, or listened to music.
He said "mama" for the first time!!
There were moments when Zeke did really well with strangers. Uncle Zack and cousin Tyler both got him laughing really loud. He let his grandmas and grandpas all hold him, my parents especially got to treck him all around the mall, lol. It gives me hope that he will get better and better. After all, he does better at playdates and I havent had to rescue him in the nursery at church in absolute weeks. Again I think next visit with somewhat less absolute craziness since its longer will go a bit better. It seems like it was the huge family gathering days that were the worst.
Getting home. He was so soo happy. He just kept looking around and smiling and even giggling to himself. We put him down at 9 in his crib and he didnt even move until almost 5 for a feeding. Then at 8 he moved into bed with me and slept past 10:30!
Hand-me-downs from aunt Jen (and cousin Ashton too). We spied them out this morning and they are great! Thanks!
No crawling! Haha, I win!