Giving Thanks!

On Wednesday evening, we loaded up the car and headed to Dallas to be with Dan's family for Thanksgiving. We started the drive pretty well, cruising right along listening to the radio and singing and talking about our day when we came to a complete stop. Not a complete stop as in a traffic light, but as in TRAFFIC! Now, I don't know why we do this every year, we know there is going to be traffic and we know we are going to sit for hours on end going nowhere, but for some reason we decided to leave after work again this year only to sit in what could only be described as a parking lot on I-35. All you could see for miles was red lights(brakes). If sitting wasn't bad enough, you throw a whining dog and an uneasy 2 year old in the mix and you got yourself a wonderful 6 hour(should have only taken 3) trip of a lifetime. We did eventually stop to stretch once we reached Waco, but it was a brutal trip and I am THANKFUL that we made it to our destination without any problems. On Turkey day, we hung out at Dan's mom's house in the morning and then in the afternoon we went over to Dan's sister, Lisa's house for dinner. Lisa and Nic hosted Thanksgiving again this year and they did a marvelous job once again. Everything was fabulous and it was fun to get to enjoy each other's company. I am THANKFUL for the Miller's and their great hospitality and cooking, so that we could enjoy a great Thanksgiving. Throughout the 4 days that we were there, we were able to see and visit with almost all of Dan's family and it was wonderful. His grandparents, dad, aunt and uncle all came down from Nebraska and we even got a surprise guest for Thanksgiving...Uncle Eric and his girlfriend Sara flew in from New York...it was top secret and they did a great job keeping it. We had just seen Eric the week before and he said he wasn't going to be able to make it for Thanksgiving, so when he knocked on the door it was a total surprise! We all hung out and visited with one another and Joshua and Kaden had a great time playing blocks and reading books, and chatting with each other. On Saturday, I went over to my cousin's house to watch Aubrey for Brittney and Jeff while they went with my family to see the Baylor vs Tech game. I am THANKFUL that I got to spend some quality time with Aubrey and have some "me" time(you don't really get that being the mother of a toddler). Aubrey is about 6 weeks old and she is super precious and such a sweet baby! I was able to spend some quality time with Brittney and Jeff so that made my short time with them so much sweeter. Dan came and picked me up early this morning and we made it to our house around 11am. We have been busy bees every since we got home, but that is for another post. I am exhausted so I will post about decorating for Christmas and trimming the tree in the next post. I have so much to be THANKFUL for and I could spend a great deal of time listing all the things I am THANKFUL for. The Lord has blessed me over and over again, and for that I am truly grateful. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I have posted some pictures from over the holiday, they are not in any particular order (remember I am exhausted...lol). Check back for some more NEW post later this week.

Is It Thanksgiving Already?

Everyone is going to have to excuse my lack of blogging, because this is a busy time of year for the Feldman Household as I am sure it is for everyone. Right after Halloween it starts to pick up which leads me to my title above...I can't believe Thanksgiving is here already! So, lets get down to what has been happening this past week and weekend. Monday and Tuesday were pretty mellow and on Wednesday, Dan's brother, Eric flew into Austin to do some recruiting for the program that he is involved in in New York so he came over and had dinner with us and then on Thursday it was Joshua's Thanksgiving feast at school, which was quite messy, but fun to see all the kids and parents enjoining a down scaled version of Thanksgiving dinner(the rolls and the mashed potatoes were a big hit). On Friday, Dan's family came down to visit with Eric, since he is not going to be able to make it home for Thanksgiving this year. We had a great time visiting with everyone and Joshua had a fun time playing with his cousin, Kaden. Everyone left on Saturday afternoon and we ran some errands in the evening and got back in time for the UT game. Today was filled with more errands, packing for Dallas, cleaning, getting all the birthday invitations together, and putting up the Christmas tree. We bought this tree at the end of last year with a huge discount attached and I have been waiting all year to put it up. The reason why we put it up today is because on Wednesday we leave for Dallas and will be gone most of the weekend. So I wanted to have it up and ready(it is not decorated yet!). We will decorate it next Sunday when we come back. I guess that is all I have for now, I will blog next week about our wonderful Thanksgiving in Dallas! I have posted some pictures below of this week.

Joshua enjoying his Thanksgiving Feast!

Kaden and Joshua putting on a live show...

Joshua enjoying the tree

Once again, showing some UT spirit!!

Another cute moment brought to you by Joshua: Mommy: Joshua, what sound does a Caterpillar make?

Joshua: MEOW!! haha!

If I do not get a chance to blog before we leave, I hope everyone has a very

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

For the Love of Balloons

What do you get when you have a child that absolutely, without a doubt loves balloons, a helium tank leftover from last year's party and a bag of balloons: HOURS OF ENTERTAINMENT!!!

Joshua loves balloons, in fact we can not go into HEB without the child spotting a balloon and saying over and over ba-oon, ba-oon, plea, plea!! (balloon, please!). Thankfully, they give the kids free balloons there. He loves these colorful, helium filled, string tied to the end, floating objects. He can entertain himself for hours with one. So, when I found a bag of leftover balloons when I was cleaning out the hall closet, Dan and I thought it would be a good idea to blow some up. Dan went and found that we still had the helium tank from Joshua's birthday party last year and that it still had a little helium left in it (enough to blow up 4 balloons). So Dan got busy filling the balloons up with helium and I tied the string on the end of them and Joshua well he screeched with glee! He was so excited! Who says you have to go out and spend money to entertain your child, in our case we just put our heads together and the outcome is below:

Joshua helping Daddy blow up the ba-oon

Time to tie a knot, don't want the helium to escape

Here is Joshua hitting the balloons over and over, he loved this!

Uh, oh one got away...."elp, up"(help,up)!

Look through the balloons and you will see a happy boy!!

He has had so much fun with these 4 balloons today! He pushes them around and hits them and screams with excitement. Seriously, did you know balloons could be this much fun?!

Nothing Much

There hasn't been a whole lot going on in the Feldman household, so I have been on a little blogging hiatus( I apologize). Dan's mom and step-dad came into town this past weekend for the ground breaking of the house of the fraternity that Dan, his dad, and step-dad are members of. We hung out and watched the UT game at the house while Joshua took his nap and then we went to the ground breaking for the new house that is going to be up and running in 2010. Dan was so glad that he was able to attend the ceremony (even if we couldn't find a parking spot and we were a little late). It was still fun too see Dan reunite with some of the people he knew when he was in college. He was so proud to show off Joshua. Joshua had a really great time running around and "calling" the birds that he saw in the trees. I am glad that Dan was able to be apart of that special event. This week there hasn't been alot going on, except that Dan left this morning to go to Dallas until Friday. I am not really as nervous as I was the last time he was gone for a week back in July. This is how I look at it, what's 3 days; when I went a WHOLE week last time. I am not trying to whine, I just miss him when he is gone. Everything seems out of sorts when he is not here and I think everyone feels it. Poor Milo has been moping around all evening going to the garage door and whining...poor little puppy. Joshua and I are doing good though, can't complain. Well, that is about all I have for now. My Dad is coming up to visit on Saturday, so I am really excited about that. It will be good to see him. I hope everyone is having a great week!!

One quick, cute, Joshua moment from tonight: I was bringing the pan to the sink this evening after I had finished cooking and the skillet was still a little hot and as I put water in it to cool it off it began to make steam/smoke and Joshua pointed up to the rising steam/smoke and said "ooooo, wow! Bubbles? wow Bubbles!" and then wanted to be picked up to pop the "bubbles". Pretty funny, huh?

Joshua's New Tricks

So, Joshua is turning into such a big boy. It is hard to believe that he will be 2 in a month and a half. REALLY hard to BELIEVE!!! I just thought I would blog about some of the things Joshua has been doing lately and post of few pictures of the little man. Joshua is starting to catch the ball when you throw it to him and when he catches it he pulls his arm towards him and says "yea!!" He also counts to 3 with a big exaggeration on the 1, and knows the color red. You can ask him to point to the color red and he will and he also will find "red" itself and point to it and say red. He also loves his shape sorter. He can find almost every shape and match it to the shape on the sorter, this is one of his favorite toys right now, when he is done he signs "more" so he can do it again...practice makes perfect! He is chatting all the time now! He loves to talk on the phone. It is funny to listen to him chattering away. He is starting to pretend play a little bit as well. He can find his family in a picture when asked (where's grandpa, uncle Chad, aunt Lisa, etc.) He can say most of his grandparents "names" and recognizes them as well. We have found him standing in the fridge a couple of times when we have left the door open to turn around and get something. He points up to the top shelf and says "that" because he knows that is where the milk is at. We are still working on labeling items, but he has gotten much better at it. We have been slowly introducing him to the potty for the past couple of months, not pushing the issue, just taking him and letting him sit on the potty here and there. We bought him some "big boy" training pants to where around the house, which he totally loves. This weekend we were not really doing a whole lot, except for trick or treating and so we decided that we would keep him in big boy pants the entire weekend and take him every 15 mins or so and if he got too fussy we would just back off. We got a couple of books for him to "read"(distract him) while he is using the potty. Well, we have had a lot of accidents in the big boy pants, which is to be expected. As soon as he would get off the potty(and not go) he would go in the other room and then potty in his pants. This potty training is very time consuming and tedious, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, right? Well, this afternoon he had tee tee in his pants and I was cleaning them and Dan had put him on the potty to show him that we tee tee in the potty. Joshua sat there a minute and then began to smile, then he got up and sure enough there was tee tee in the potty....so of course, we started clapping and cheering and giving him high fives. He looked at us funny at first, but then he started clapping and saying "yay!" It was great! So we decided to take this potty training thing head on, full force. And last but not least, the day has come, I have posted it several times in my blog and have been waiting for this to happen and it did, at nap time. Joshua was taking his nap and we usually hear him talk and stir in the monitor when he is waking up, but today we heard "bam bam, out!!". We both got up to check on him and sure enough, Joshua had gotten out of the bed and was knocking on his door to come out. It was really funny and of course he looked at us like we were crazy for both of us standing there looking at him. When Dan opened the door, Joshua just walked out like no big deal. So, I guess we will be hearing more of a "knocking" than talking when he is ready to get up. Well, that is all I have for now...sorry it is so long, just a lot to talk about. Hope everyone has a great week!

A boy and his phone

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Fall Happenings

Our little family has been so busy this past week that Joshua should have been a "busy bee" for Halloween. We started off last Thursday with a costume parade and a class party at Joshua's school. I was able to take a little time off from work and help with his class and experience the fun! Theses little kids were so cute with all their little costumes. On Friday, Joshua's school had a Fall Festival which included cotton candy, popcorn, jump houses, a train and many booths. His class did a bowling booth and Dan and I signed up for a time slot which was really fun! Joshua wasn't into the carnival as much , so after our shift was up we left. Then came Halloween on Saturday. Joshua did really well. He was so excited! We brought his stroller thinking that he might want to ride in it after awhile, but we were wrong; he walked the whole time and loved every bit of it. I have posted some pictures below of all the events that we did. Since I did a flashback pumpkin carving, I had to throw in a Halloween flashback as well.

Joshua's class trick or treating

My Friend's House Fall Festival

Joshua Bowling

The bowling booth

Handy Manny Himself

Trick or Treating with Daddy

We try to go every year with my family

Flashback: Family Pic on Halloween Last Yr.

Family Pic on Halloween this yr.