Happy Birthday/Thanksgiving!

On Saturday Logan's family came to visit for Thanksgiving, so we met them in Chicago and stayed at Logan's uncle and aunt's house for the weekend. They have a beautiful house and it was fun to see some of the sites.
To start our trip off, Carli was supposed to have been taking a nap, and I looked in on her to find this. Take notice of a few things: the binki across the room, the blanket that was in the crib that's on the floor, her pants that she was wearing that she is no longer. Can't imagine what she was doing instead of sleeping. . .On Carli's first birthday we went to the aquarium in Chicago. It was a free day and it was a lot of fun. It is so hard to believe that she is a year old. There were quite a few times when it felt like de ja vu because of Thanksgiving last year. I was sure glad that the one this year didn't end in a stay at the hospital, even though we were thrilled last year's did. And I'm sure that Logan's brothers were especially glad that their X-Box game didn't end the same way it did last year (with a gush and then chaos, if you get my drift. . .) We have certainly been grateful for our cute, spunky, happy, determined, friendly, lovable little girl ever since that time. Anyway, here we are with Grammy in the cute jacket she got for Carli for her birthday.

Papa Tommy was good to take Carli around in the stroller while we all looked around the aquarium (sorry for the weird candid shot).We watched one of those 4-D movies and Carli did pretty well in it until we all got sprayed in the face by "dolphins". Isn't her daddy handsome?
Uncle Will and Uncle Kelly (aka Wilbur and Kelby) pose next to the statues in front of the aquarium.

We celebrated Carli's birthday by eating some fabulous Chicago style pizza. Yum! Carli even got some ice cream, which she thoroughly enjoyed, as you can see. Her dad even let her have the spoon!

After dinner Carli got to open presents. Thank you Grammy, Papa Tommy, Wilbur and Kelby for the fun gifts! She sent each gift through a strenuous round of quality assurance testing with her teeth, as usual.

New fun poky balls!

Thanks Aunt Shanna, Uncle Daryl, Nathan and Josh for the cute book. We love it!

She is now the proud owner of a cell phone, much to her delight.

Carli waving goodnight after her fun day of family, museums, good food, opening presents, eating cupcakes and all of that excitement.

Grammy cuddling with Haven and Carli before the crew had to leave to go to the airport.

I know, I didn't get any pictures of Thanksgiving, but it was great. We certainly had a feast. It was so fun to be able to host everyone here at our house. We love when it is filled up with company, especially our family. I'm very grateful for my family in this season and it is such a blessing to be able to spend time with all of them. Thanks for coming!

P.S. I will put a video up soon. Carli took her first real steps a couple of days before her birthday and now she is a walking maniac. I'm almost regretting letting her have the walker Nana gave her, but she sure is cute when she walks.