Mills & Syddles: Thanksgiving

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Thanksgiving

This year we were home on Thanksgiving day...packing and getting read to head out early Friday morning for St. Louis to meet up with John's siblings and kiddos. No one lives in St. Louis; it is just a good halfway point for everyone: JKK - AR, Coco - OK, Mike & Kathy - WI. Since we were leaving for the weekend, I didn't want to cook a bunch of stuff nor did I have the time. Sidenote: why does it take so much time & effort to get ready to leave for 3 days?! Thus, we went out for lunch on Thursday...thinking it would be fun for the four of us to have a special holiday lunch together. Turns out, we were too late getting out the door and too close to nap time, which made Millie very uncooperative. We left lunch feeling pumped for a weekend of eating out ahead of us....ha!

we've learned our lesson about not getting a high chair...it's a must from now on

Syd in her turkey bib

can you see her hair? that's from wallowing (sp?) around so much and going under the table 50 times. see that look she's giving me? that look says no thanks on the food, i'd rather run around like a crazy person.

awwww, Syd...

Daddy and Mills took a post-turkey nap

Friday morning, we managed to hit the road by 8:30. We stopped for lunch at one of those McDonald's play places, which turned out to be a fantastic idea. Both kids got to eat and get out of their car seats for an hour. They took good naps and we got to the Lou with no problems! Thank goodness for the iPad. Millie is now a fan of Finding Nemo...she calls it the fishy movie. We met up with the crew at our hotel.

Millie and Uncle Tony (with his Movember stache)

Nick & Jack! Going to be 12 in January...man, time flies...

Lukey (turning 13 in January!) & Uncle John

Aunt Coco, Syd, & KK

Aunt Kathy & Syd...with a Dan (almost 15!) photobomb

It was getting pretty late in the day, but the big kids wanted to walk up to the Arch...so we met them up there. It. Was. Freezing. We took a few pics that didn't quite turn out because it was almost dusk, and then we went to dinner.

Pizza time. Millie took the top left pic of JKK :)

After dinner we had to go to our room for the girls to go to bed. Vacation with small children is sort of strange. Naps and early bedtimes are really restrictive. Thankfully, we had a suite, so our bedroom had a door. Millie had to sleep in the living area on the pullout couch. I wish we could've video-ed her finding out that she was going to be sleeping on that bed...it was shock, disbelief, and fear all rolled into one. JKK had to stay with her while she fell asleep, but she stayed in the bed all night...both nights! Syd did okay too...she was in the pack-n-play in our room. SUPER early wakeup call though: 5am. Both days. Somehow, after getting up at 5am, we still weren't able to get out of the hotel before 9:30am. ;)

Saturday morning, we went to the Children's museum...what an awesome place! Can't wait to go back when the girls are a little older. There was a cool toddler area that even had a train ride.

I wish Millie's face was more clear...this look is 1000% Millie. She was so excited.

Then she lined up every one of these round blocks that she could find...

Syddles was napping in the stroller...we were enjoying watching Mills play

she loved this ball pit

Coco, JKK, & I all rode this 10-story slide!

lunchtime

Is this too close?! She's really into Mickey these days...

While we were letting Millie & Syd nap at the hotel, the rest of the gang plus Beth & Ben (Mike was sick) went back to the Arch to ride up to the top.

awesome pic of N & J at the top

Benjo & Elisabeth...congrats to Beth for graduating from Boston College earlier this year and getting a job as an ER nurse in Chicago!

Millie had the BEST time with every single family member; she didn't discriminate. In typical 2 year old style, she was convinced it was all about her. Thanks to everyone for indulging her.

Elisabeth's first time to meet Mills & Syd <3

I got to sit next to this guy at dinner

And then it was another early night for us...hotel living is for the birds when you have small kids.

Sunny Sunday morning, we checked out of the hotel and met the gang at the St. Louis zoo. It was the most gorgeous day, and Millie was super excited to go to the zoo. She talked the whole way there about what animals she might see: kangaroos, snakes, tigers, sea monsters. I don't think she was disappointed; she absolutely loved it. She also loved yelling out "come here everybody!" anytime she saw something cool. She was all over the place. It was pretty awesome to witness.