Thanksgiving 2012

When we decided to move to the east coast and started tallying up how much this move was going to cost us we decided that we wouldn't travel for the holidays this year.  While we didn't get to share the holidays with the rest of the family, travel-free holidays and being in NYC was pretty okay. 

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun.  We kept it simple and enjoyed quality time as a family. And on Wednesday night we became thankful for not needing to travel as it was a complete madhouse.  I mean completely nuts.  If we were trying to get anywhere I would have been a total ball of stress.  Instead we picked up cookies at City Bakery for dessert during a family walk and made butternut squash soup for dinner.

(we usually keep Jaime away from screens, but an exception was made so that he could help create his Christmas wish list and skype over the long weekend)

Thanksgiving morning we woke up to find marching bands lined up down our street.  We live near the staging area of the parade.

With it being just us and Jaime's first thanksgiving, I wanted to be sure to plan some thing fun... So we went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Dan was not sure about this plan but I insisted.  And it was a lot of fun, totally worth it.  I let go of trying get there at 6am to get a tony spot.  Instead, we waited till after the first the nap. And made our way down to Midtown to pick up a later leg of the parade route. 

It was of course packed and we were very far back.  But you could see the balloons and feel the excitement.  It was such an experience to be there.  Jaime's favorite balloon was Papa Smurf and he loved the people watching.

The rest of Thanksgiving day was filled with naps, a walk in Central Park with a stop at the swings, a dinner consisting of veggies from our neighborhood's farmers market and turkey, and a nice bottle of wine with a movie.  I totally botched the dessert... it was pretty pitiful but we had ice cream from the corner store.

We also did get to see family with a skype call.  Gotta love technology. 

Thanksgiving weekend included starting Jaime on solids.  Banana was his first solids meal but he had been sneaking bits of everything from roasted red pepper hummus to the juice off my apple and greek yogurt for weeks.  He thoroughly enjoyed the Harry and David pear from Grandma and Grandpa U.  It also included practice sitting up and standing.  He thought he was such a big boy that he also had to try out a highchair for the first time at a neighborhood diner as well as drinking water from Dad's glass.  This kid wants to grow up!

 On our Sunday trip to the farmers market the Christmas trees were out.  Time to get ready for Jaime's first Christmas.

November flew.  As would the rest of 2012.