Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving here was fantastic! We had it at our house and I was so happy to see our basement get some use. We wanted a big house with gatherings like this in mind, where people have plenty of room and lots of things to do. The food was great, the company was wonderful, and I think everyone had a good time. Yeah!

Today we started putting up the Christmas decorations. It is fun trying to find out where everything will go. I think I have decided that we need more decorations. I don't think I have many decorations for the basement...unless I put a tree down there but I was planning on putting the cluster of 3 trees in the kitchen and the fancy tree in the nice living room. We'll see. We put up the big, fancy tree tonight except we didn't get any ornaments on. We were spending too much time trying to get James out from under the tree. He kept crawling under it! He is like a cat! Anyway, the outside lights are about 50% done too. I think we need to buy some more though.

Oh...James had his 18 month check-up this past week. He has reached or is past all developmental milestones. He is 26 pounds and 35 inches tall. He is definately built like Jim! James has been doing a really funny thing...he tells jokes. You can't understand what he is saying but he will tell the joke, wait a little bit, give the punch line and then bust out in a fake laugh that Jim taught the kids to do when someone tells a joke. It is so funny becuase you can tell that to him, he is really telling a good joke. Other things he is doing...he runs, climbs, tackles, throws, and does everything that is an active "boy". He has lately tried to go up the stairs while riding his Nemo car (a ride-on car). He lifts up the front while he is still on it tries to go up the stairs. He has a few times tried to ride the car down the stairs in the garage but thankfully hasn't been successful yet because I have caught him in time. (thank goodness for door alarms) He continues to drink about a 1/2 gallon of milk everyday and enjoys eating pancakes, cereal, green beans, and crackers with cheese or peanut butter or Nutella (but not all in the same meal).