Thanksgiving Weekend

Man, what a great Thanksgiving break we had! Here's how it went for the DC Plomins.

Wednesday:
Went to school/work/sitter's as usual, hardly any traffic (comparatively) and a slow day for everyone. Matt's class was over at noon and I got off work early as well. I did manage to finish my paper (due Thursday) before leaving, so I didn't have to worry about that on Thanksgiving. We spent the rest of the day hanging around the house and preparing for the long weekend ahead!

Thursday:
Turkey Day! We went to Joe and Judy's as early as we could muster (arrived around 10ish) so that Matt could be in the kitchen during all the cooking hub-bub. I had already decided I wasn't going to try to 'accomplish' anything, as I would much rather have a day of 'quality time' with Karol.
Karol was quite a riot all day. Of course she didn't want to nap at all because she might miss something fun with Dusty or lose some running around the house time. So by mid-afternoon, she was pretty drunk with lack of sleep. In the meantime we colored Thanksgiving Day Turkeys with Jen, watched the Macy's parade (saw Santa) and played with Karol's 'coco' (a stuffed animal bunny from Aunt Judy). Karol did eventually take a brief nap, but was up again in no time.
We ended up having dinner around 6 and it was delicious!! Karol didn't eat hardly anything, though! Her appetite has been very sparse recently, and we can't get her interested in much. She spent a lot of dinner time still doing laps around the house.
After dinner, Matt tried to get Karol to sleep by driving her around the block a few times, but was unsuccessful. When he came back I ran out to hopefully help him bring in our sleeping baby, but she was whining and crying instead! And just like that the evening was abruptly ended. Matt ran in and grabbed our bags-o-baby-gear and without even saying good-bye we took off! Karol did finally conk out about halfway home. All the eventfulness of the day had finally crashed on her. The next time we spend the whole day at Joe and Judy's, we will have to figure out a way to get Karol to nap! Maybe Matt or I will have to just take her for a drive for a couple of hours in the middle of the day!

Friday:
Well Matt was all geeked about doing the 'door-buster' thing...until 5 am rolled around and he was still snoring! We did go out around 8:30 or 9 to get the new cookbook from Costco, and had a lot of fun pretending to 'door-bust' there. We did actually manage to catch a few good deals, and picked up a few things for ourselves as well as some gifts for others. Karol got a new pair of shoes for Christmas time and we even caught a glimpse of Santa at the mall. He waved to Karol and she waved back, but we are waiting to go see him until our pretty, pretty Christmas dress is here! I just hope we can get a picture without tears!
Well after a whole day of shopping and not much nap time, Karol was in bed for the night at 5:30 (normal bedtime is around 8!). Matt and I ceased the opportunity to start cleaning out the closets, pulling out Christmas decorations, packing away summer clothes, and sorting through baby clothes for things Patrick can use and things that need to be labeled and stored. After that, we had a giant pile for the trash, a giant pile for charity, and a lot more storage space. It's amazing the crap we keep around until we absolutely have to make more room!

Saturday:
Saturday was our lazy day. In fact, Karol was the only one of us that even changed out of pajamas! We spent the day cleaning house, organizing (left over from the night before) and watching classic Christmas movies like Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.

Sunday:
We managed to all get up and bathed and dressed in time for 9:30 Mass at St. Michael's, and from there we hit the Costco, Ikea (to return some storage bins we didn't need) and Target. Karol started showing signs of sleepiness toward the end of Mass, so not surprisingly she was asleep shortly after we left there. We got all the way to Ikea before we realized we'd left the storage bins in the living room! Since Karol was asleep (and I wanted her to get a good nap in) we went all the way back home to retrieve them. We stopped by Chipotle for Matt, then it was back to Ikea where Matt returned the bins and got some lunch for Karol and I.
Karol was still napping, so we went the Costco and got gas first ($1.63/gal!) which took about 15 minutes of waiting in line. We finally had to wake her to go into Costco and do some grocery shopping. So, I pushed the cart while Karol ate a PB&J and Matt did the heavy lifting. We also picked up some new shatter-proof tree ornaments and decided the glass ones from last year will go in the charity pile.
Last but not least, we headed to the Greatland-Silver Spring Target. We didn't really need anything there, but I wanted to show Matt how awesome it is compared to the one we normally go to. I think I'm officially declaring it 'our' Target. We did some more window-shopping for Christmas gifts there, and Karol had a blast on her monkey leash, especially in the toy section! There is an Elmo doll that talks and blows kisses making the "mwa!" noise. Karol has almost mastered the same "mwa" for kissing and got a real kick out of this crazy mechanical doll.
Finally I decided it was time to go home. With all the walking we did, especially running around Target, I thought I might just go into labor if we didn't get home soon. Sunday night Karol and I cozied up and read books while Matt brought all the stuff in from the car (and there was a lot of stuff!) Karol actually ate some dinner, and then was off to bed. Matt watched the Bears game and I worked on homework until our bedtime!

So that's our Thanksgiving weekend! Hope you all enjoyed reading about it as much as we enjoyed doing it!