November

This fall has just flown by, and before we knew it, it was November. We took Sunny back to our house after we got all the boxes cleared so he wouldn't run into them, as he can only see bright light these days, and we didn't want to make the new house an obstacle course. Meredith and Sunny were actually pretty sweet to each other and seemed to get along well (it has been quite a few months since they had to interact on a day-to-day basis).

However, for those who don't know, Sunny has gone back to stay indefinitely (but not permanently) with my parents. They are still working on getting his allergies under control, undoubtedly his biggest (fixable) problem, and they won't be able to do allergy testing until the spring. In the meantime, he didn't seem as happy at our house as he did following Rosie (my parents' dog) and since Meredith's behavior is so erratic, ended up spending most of the time in the corner out of her way - by losing his sight, he lost his best defense mechanism against a curious toddler - evasion - and he seemed down at our house. We thought while they are still working on his health problems, and until Meredith grows up a little bit (and understands, for example, to leave him alone while he eats, etc.), he will stay there, which really isn't so bad because for the most part we get to see them, and him, about every other week and my parents adore him so he is in very good hands.

If you look close you can see her face peeking out from the ball pit. She loves it.

We were over at Todd's parents' house and Meredith and Brady Coleman (next-door neighbors Beth and Steve's grandson) were playing. I get this question a lot too - Meredith is exactly 6 months to the day older than Brady.

Meredith loves to climb inside this table at Mimi and Papa's house

Dave, Joanna, and Prather came down to see all of us and stay with us in November.

Our nephew Prather, 2 months old here. What a cutie!

Uncle Todd with Prather - he did pretty well with Todd

Meredith really likes this zebra - it didn't take her long to get the hang of bouncing on it

Here is Little Miss Sassy, prancing around and eating french fries

Brady Coleman turned one on Thanksgiving Day, so his party was the weekend before at the park in Satsuma. Meredith liked the bouncy thing at first, but that didn't last long.

Meredith and Brady

Walking with Papa Wyatt

Swinging with Mimi

The birthday boy with his baseball cake

Meredith "playing tennis" - I have to use the term loosely, but she had a good time.

By far, though, her favorite activity was sliding

Her Daddy even took her on the big kid slide!

Before we knew it, it was Thanksgiving! We spent Thanksgiving in Montgomery, and Todd went to the Iron Bowl game in Auburn on that Saturday (Auburn vs. Alabama - the biggest rivals and the biggest regular season game of the year for both teams - that's why they save it for last)

Meredith eating a giant marshmallow on Thanksgiving Day

We also got to see Martha, and her niece Melanie, Melanie's husband Matt, and Melanie's mom Sharon on Thanksgiving Day in Montgomery. Martha brought Meredith this dog that rocks and barks Christmas music. She is playing with it and in the toybox at Nana's house

This is just an update on other things that have been going on. Todd's dad had foot surgery the day we moved into our house. He was having some trouble with it healing, but it is doing much better and he has been cleared to go back to work next week (December 17th). Todd's mother has been in worse shape, she went into the hospital for what they thought was a bad kidney infection. It turned out to be a gall bladder infection - she has gallstones - but that is not her worst problem and will just have to be monitored. Her worst problem is that she had 90% blockage in some of her arteries and 80 something % in others - very bad and she is lucky that she hasn't already had a heart attack. They tried to do a stint but the blockages were in crooks and bends in her blood vessels so they had to a triple bypass surgery the Monday after Thanksgiving. Although she feels very bad and it is a slow recovery, the surgery, in the cardiologist's words "couldn't have gone any better," so we are very thankful for that. But hopefully that also explains part of why we have been so busy. She is recovering very well and making great progress, it is just a very difficult surgery to recover from. As many of you know, Todd's father had a heart attack about 3 weeks after Meredith was born and had to have quadruple bypass surgery, so his mother and father have been through this before. But we only have good news to report so we are very relieved and happy!


On a lighter note, Meredith has discovered, among other things, that she really likes spaghetti. Here you can see she really got into her spaghetti dinner that night!