A Cracker Barrel Thanksgiving

Shelby finally decided to wake up at 9:45 on Turkey Day (she is such a sleepyhead these days, but I'm not complaining!!!), and we got on the road around 11am for Jackson. I had the plan worked out perfectly in my mind..the drive would take us 3 hours, which would get us there just in time for me to get Shelby her lunch and get her down for a nap at a decent time. Well, I totally didn't think about how hard it would be to get an adult, a nearly 30 pound baby, a pack n play, bumbo seat & tray, baby's lunch, mama's lunch, sound machine, blankets, diaper bag {there's a few more things, but I'm pretty sure you get the idea at this point..it was a LOT of stuff! Ha!} into the hotel room on the 3rd floor by.my.self. And I had to do it quickly b/c Shelby was hungry and tired. From the time we rolled into the parking lot of the hotel to when I got Shelby down in her pack n play was probably about an hour. But those 60 minutes...oh those were probably the most stressful, chaotic, and ugly 60 minutes of my life. It wasn't pretty, but I survived. And I learned my lesson...us girls will not be going to a hotel on our own anytime in the near future. Luggage carts were not meant to be loaded or steered with a non-walking 14 month old in tow. Period.

Okay, onto the enjoyable part of our day! Derek got off work and back to the hotel around 6:30 that evening, so we quickly woke Shelby up from her nap (I told you she is quite the sleeyhead!) and headed over to Cracker Barrel. This was hands-down the best behaved/most fun Shelby has ever been/had at a restaurant..it's like she knew it was a special holiday! As you can see by the pictures below, she loved sliding her menu {notice the blur in the pictures?!} back and forth across the table..ha! And we had a big milestone on this evening...tonight when we gave Shelby the crayons, she scribbled for the first time! We were so proud! {But don't worry..after about 5 minutes of scribbling, the crayons went straight into the mouth! Note to self: add non-toxic crayons to the long list of things I am thankful for!}

{I love how determined she looks about her scribbling in the pic below!}

We happened to run into one of the other residents from Keesler who is up in Jackson this month, so he joined us for dinner. Shelby was definitely hamming it up for our company! :)

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and grabbed some ice cream from the lobby to enjoy as a little Thanksgiving dessert before bed. Shelby wouldn't partake in any of our Thanksgiving dinner, but she was all about the dessert! :)



Daddy had to head to the hospital around 5:45am on Friday morning, but us girls slept in until around 9, packed up, grabbed some Chick-fil-a for this Mama, and hit the road around 10:30. It was definitely a whirlwind trip and road trips are never easy with a little one, but I'm so thankful the three of us could be together for Thanksgiving. And I'm thankful we got to spend some time with one of Derek's co-workers--it was nice getting to know someone that Derek spends his days with, and I'm glad we kept him from being alone on the holiday!

Hope y'all all had a great holiday weekend as well! I feel like I am so behind on the blog, but I have gotten all of Christmas decorations/lights up and most of my shopping done..and that feels so good! Hopefully I'll be back soon with Shelby's very belated 14 month post. Until then, happy Cyber Monday to you! :)