Nothing like a long weekend to get you all revved up for another week. And these next weeks are going to be lo-o-o-ng. Do you KNOW how long it is until Christmas? I have to be good for 4 weeks. Count ‘em – 4. To help with the counting we have a new picture that will count the days to Christmas. Every day in December I get to pull an ornament out of the pocket and hang it on the picture tree. We have another advent calendar treat tree too! It has all these little boxes that Mommy is going to put treats in. And every day I’ll get a treat.

We pulled out some Christmas decorations already too. We put out some little houses and hung the stockings. (St. Nick comes on December 6th so we need to be ready for him!) We’ll be doing more decorating this week. And hopefully it will get a little warmer so we can go outside – our lights outside don’t all light up and we need to fix them.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays! Ok, so this was my first big family holiday gathering (I was too little to go to Easter), but anywhere there are people to hold me and feed me treats, I’m for sure not going to miss another one. Great Aunt Marcia’s house was full of people and kids and food! Cool Whip is like heaven. Pumpkin pie? Glorious! Mashed potatos… eh, gimme more dessert.

My sister likes dessert too. She ate a cupcake and it looks like she was wearing most of it. And while everyone was distracted watching me clap and smile and look cute, Elise was sneaking bites off the dessert table. I should have had her sneak bits for me too. There was a chocolate cake and some gingerbread trifle that I wanted to try too. Mom? Get that recipe.

It’s cold season around here. Bad thing about kid colds is that they happen often. Good thing is that they’re usually short-lived and we don’t complain (except when it comes to kleenex and that nose suctioning thing). And a little cold is not going to stop us from going to a birthday party! Off to cousin Ella’s 7th birthday party (and Uncle Scott’s birthday too). There was lots and lots of yelling and loud music and dancing. And dessert – cherry cupcakes, chocolate cake, chocolate pie… I tried them all. And then I crashed. Tired, cranky and sick, I wanted to stay at the party for a sleepover, but Mommy said I needed to go. I wasn’t happy, but I still got to sleep over at Nana & Papa’s house and that was pretty fun too. I get to see Ella and Grace this week for Thanksgiving! That’ll be fun!

I got a stuffy nose too, but that hasn’t stuffed up my learning abilities. On Tuesday I figured out crawling! Hand, knee, hand, knee, repeat, repeat, bellyflop. I also have some cool breakdancing belly-spin moves to twist around and turn corners. I can almost go from crawling to sitting… I just need to tip myself up a bit more… I’m almost there. It won’t be long.

In the meantime, I’ll just clap to myself. I’m a reckless clapper… don’t get too close or you’ll get clap-slapped. I practice often: during dinner (watch out for that spoon), during playtime on the floor and during bedtime, most often when I just wake up. And I probably don’t realize that I’ve learned a word, but I say “mom” all the time. One day I’ll put the word and the person together. For now I’ll just repeat it over and over until I learn my “d” words.