Thanksgiving in Virginia

This year we spent a week over the Thanksgiving holiday in Virginia visiting Shawn's family.  It was a fantastic week.  The kids loved staying at Nana's house and spending lots of time playing and reading books with her.  Five of Shawn's six siblings were in town (Keith just had a new grand baby in Seattle so they spent the holiday there :-) along with most of their kids so it was a wonderful opportunity to spend time with everyone.  On Thanksgiving morning, Shawn, Nicholas and the whole Meadows clan ran a 5K gobble trot!  This was Nicholas' first 5K to run with his daddy.  Scott and Kim hosted a top notch Thanksgiving celebration, leaving us all happily stuffed!  We were able to see Mary Katherine and Meghan play field hockey, watch Madison and Anthony march and play in the Fife and Drum Corps, and enjoy the sights and sounds of Colonial Williamsburg.  While in Virginia, we celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary with a special night out for dinner, thanks to Nana watching the kiddos!  We also celebrated Juliana's 4th birthday there.  We went to mass in the morning and Shawn's mom was so sweet to get a dozen lovely white roses in her honor as well as have a little cake celebration with the kids in the evening.  It was a great week spent with great family!  We are truly thankful!

Grace and Mary Katherine

Henry and Meghan

Henry with his godmother Aunt Kelly

Kelly is showing him her phone backdrop with his picture on it :-)

Happy Thanksgiving....the girls table

Nicholas and Aunt Carla

Happy Thanksgiving...the boys table

Nicholas and William

Happy Thanksgiving...the cool table :-) LOL

Happy Thanksgiving...the other cool table :-)

Grace was very excited over the entire trip, she had a wonderful time!

Grace and Aunt Kim

Henry doing a "pound" with Uncle Scott

Shawn with his goddaughter Madison

Our little man also had a lot of fun on the trip

Fun with Daddy

Nicholas getting smooches from Aunt Kim

Shawn with his other goddaughter Rory

Henry chose to hang with "electronic" crowd

Right at home :-)

Grace with her Godmother Heidi

Nicholas ran his first ever 5K with Daddy...they had so much fun and we were so proud of our little runner!

All the gobble trot runners...way to go!!!!

Happy 4th Birthday in Heaven, Juliana!

Dear Juliana Rose,

It seems like only yesterday your Daddy and I held you in our arms, sang to you, prayed with you, and told you how much we loved you.  If you were still here on earth, you'd be 4 years old now!  Sometimes I try to picture what you might look like at this age or what you would be interested in.  It is really hard to picture though.  To me, you are just too perfect for this world.  You were made for heaven!  You belong with Christ, his mother Mary and all the angels and saints.  I know you fit right in with them.  We sure do miss you here though! I still cry every once in a while, missing you.  But not too often any more.  Your Daddy and I both have come to find more joy than sadness in having you in heaven instead of with us, strange as it may sound.  We have come to see first hand what a blessing it is to have you there watching over us and interceding for us.  Juliana, you have touched many lives and hearts just this year alone.  It is so tremendous, so beautiful!  We are so thankful for you!  We love you just the way you are!  You will always be our sweet, perfect baby girl and we will always love you and remember you!!!

Sending Hugs and Kisses to Heaven for your Happy Birthday there.......

Love,

Your Mommy and Daddy

Henry 21 Months

This month Henry has learned how to use a fork and has been really interested in giving everyone hugs.  But his focus this month has certainly been talking.  I have lost track of all his new words as he seems to say several new ones each day and tries to repeat anything.  A few of the particularly cute things he has been saying are "hurray" in the If You Are Happy And You Know It song, asking for "help" when he needs it, "batteries" when a toy doesn't work, and he likes to put an oven mitt on his hand and say "stand back!"  He is also now saying "Henry" and "Grace" pretty clearly, though still has a hard time saying Nicholas' name.  He has even said his first sentence this month, "I want to read a book."  And he has several phrases he uses frequently such as  "No Mam!" "Where mom go?" or "Where Dad go?", "I want a hug", "Oh no", and "I don't know."  In general his voice has gotten very loud!!  When he sings he tends to use his very deep and very loud voice especially :-)  And finally, he has become much more interested in books this month.  Goodnight Moon and Where's Spot? are his favorites.

A Big Girl Bed!

It's official, Grace is a big girl now!  She has a new big girl bed which she loves and is so excited about!

A Fun Fall Family Visit

Last weekend we took a nice road trip up to Winston Salem, NC to visit Elizabeth and Jon and their family. On the way, we picked up Shawn's niece Kaitlin in Charlotte, NC so she could join us for the family get together.  It was so great to see Kaitlin, Elizabeth and Jon and for all the cousins to spend time together.  They had a blast!  We enjoyed perfect fall weather!  We are so thankful to have such loving family close enough to drive and visit!

The kids table

Fun with costumes

William and Ava made some lovely friendship bracelets for us!

Henry and Jane were so cute together...they are just the same size :-)

Hugh's great smile

And Ava's great smile...

They took us to a very nice park and we all had a great time there

William and Henry

Kaitlin with Uncle Shawn-O

William the soccer player...we had a chance to watch his last game of the season and even saw him score 2 goals!

Nicholas and William in the sand box

Fun with Ava in the leaves

Isn't fall and family time great?!

Happy Halloween!

 Lots of  Halloween fun this year, from Trunk or Treat at the kids' preschool, to a couple different parties at friends' homes, to trick or treating in the neighborhood of course....it was all great!  Our astronaut, Cinderella, and monkey had a nice Halloween!

Fall Sports for Nicholas

This is Nicholas with his good friend Jimmy on their last day of baseball this fall

This fall Nicholas has been playing soccer again,  and baseball (T ball) for the first time.  He plays soccer for the SPC church league and particularly loves all the running and that he sees so many of his friends on his own team and on the teams they play against.  For baseball, he played an instructional league where they had a mixture of days where they just had different stations to learn how to hit, catch, throw, etc. and then other days where they played a game.  For the games, the coach pitched to them and only if they couldn't hit it after about 5 tries, then they could hit off the Tee.  The first game, Nicholas needed to hit off the Tee but by the last game, he was hitting the pitch!  We were so proud of him!

Getting instructions from the coach

Our big slugger

Our big kicker

Receiving his soccer trophy from his coach

Pumpkin Patch

This year we visited Berry Patch Farms, a pumpkin patch about 20 minutes from us.  Unfortunately, Shawn had to fly out of town for a funeral, so he missed our annual pumpkin patch visit this year.  Even though we missed him, the kids and I still had a nice time.  The weather was lovely and the kids particularly liked running through the fields.  Henry was obsessed with the tractor for the hayride!  I think he would ride the hayride all day long just to be that close to the tractor if he could.  

Happily watching the tractor driving by

Best buddies

Such a tough decision....

Silly kiddos

Our sweet girl

What a fun tractor

Everyone say "Pumpkins!" :-)