Trying to Catch Up (edited with minivan pic)

I can see where I get my impatience from…MOM! She clearly is not happy that I have not posted lately. So, well, let’s see. I guess I’ll just start with Thanksgiving. We woke up with Abriella on Wednesday before Thanksgiving to head out. The plan was to leave right after she got up. Well, I guess it would’ve helped if I would’ve finished packing the night before. Oops. Oh well, we got a bit of a later start than anticipated, but that seems to be a Joyner trait that I have picked up on over the years. Trip was going well, and thanks to Amanda, the trip was MUCH smoother due to a car DVD player that she let us borrow. Abriella rarely watches TV at home anyway, so it was a really special treat for her. She was enthralled! Veggie Tales was a HUGE hit with her! The child finally gave into a nap around 2:15pm (yep, that was the FIRST time she decided to take one…uggh!). Well, 45 minutes later, she was up again and ready for more Veggie Tales. Well, unfortunately, our longer cord that was going to the DVD player since Abs was still rear facing had given up the ghost in that short time. So, drastic measures had to be taken. We pulled over at some W Texas (middle of nowhere) picnic area off the highway to turn Abriella forward facing in her carseat for the first time ever so that we could use the short cord. Let me tell you, it HAD to be done even though we were only about 1 1/2 hrs away from Lubbock at this time. All was well in the world again except that now Abriella could see Stephen much easier and also the keys in the ignition. She wanted both daddy and the keys. It took a little to convince the child that she couldn’t have either.

Anyway, we made it to Lubbock and soon were headed over the Janet’s (David’s fiance at the time) house to eat dinner and meet lots of new people. Abriella did great, despite the night going much later than her bedtime and only having a very short nap all day. She enjoyed playing with her cousins and Janet’s two granddaughters. Lots of kiddos running around. It was fun.

Thursday was enjoyable with Thanksgiving at David’s house with the Joyners and Janet. Lots of work cleaning out the house was done by Chrissy, Stephen, Matt, and Nat. They went through closets, rooms, cabinets, drawers, the attic, garage. What a wild mess! Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything much to help except try to help with the kids. Thursday night, I stayed home to put Abriella to bed earlier while the rest went for another Thanksgiving meal with friends and family of Janet’s. They reported a very good time! Friday consisted of more of the same with cleaning.

Saturday was the big wedding day for David and Janet. You would think 11:00am would be a grand time for a ceremony. Well, with 6 kids ages 3 and under, maybe not. Half of the crew did fine, the other half were very unhappy with the circumstances, so there was quite a bit of crying occurring during the ceremony. And, there was lots of calling for “Papaw” during the ceremony. They didn’t understand that he couldn’t hold them at the time! Nonetheless, it was a lovely ceremony with immediate family in attendance. We are super thrilled for this union between David and Janet. Although we miss Pam immensely, and wish she was here, we know that she wouldn’t want it any other way since she isn’t with us. Someone needs to keep David in line, and Janet seems to be up to the challenge!! 🙂

Sunday, we went to church and then ate lunch afterwards and did more visiting with family. We left around 2:15 or so. The nap on the way home was a total of 1 hr! The child just doesn’t care to sleep in the car anymore. Kind of a curse on trips! But, Veggie Tales is a lifesaver!

Thankfully, Stephen had taken Monday off, and we used that to recover a bit. A bit of a challenging part in all of this is that Abriella has been working on dropping one of her 2 naps, and we’ve been trying to find the best time for her one nap. I’d like it to be somewhere around 1 or 2pm ultimately, but as of the last few days, we’ve gotten it to 11:30am. She somehow felt like she wanted a morning nap more, but she wasn’t making it to bedtime really well. We’ve been slowly moving the nap later and later in the day.

All in all, the trip was really busy and hectic, but it was such a blessing to be with the family and meet new family. We were thankful to get back home in our room AWAY from Abriella. When the child knows you’re in the room, you can’t ignore her much. And, one night, she decided to cry and call out to Mama and Dada starting around 1 am. She usually sleeps solid through the night, so I wanted to make sure she was alright. Still not sure what her problem was, although potentially teething (isn’t that always the answer?), but she was up until around 3 am. It was awful. It was like dealing with a newborn all over again. I think if she hadn’t been able to stand up in the pack-n-play and see us laying there in the bed, she would’ve gone back to sleep without the 2 hr ordeal. Thankfully, all is back to normal there. Yeah for separate rooms!!

So, we’ve been readjusting to our routines this week. Then, Saturday, we had a big day in that we purchased a new vehicle for us!! We had been researching what kind of minivan to get and had already decided on what we wanted to pay for whatever we got. We went out in search of one of 2 minivans, but weren’t sure if either would fit into our price range, unless we got a really good deal. Well, God definitely blessed us. We purchased a Honda Odyssey and paid for it in full with only going over our goal price by $500!! We were ecstatic! Our salesman was really nice and from a believing family, and really worked with us to get the price we were aiming for. He went to his manager 4 or more times to bring the price down more. We left without our good ole Ford Taurus and drove home with much more room in our minivan!! Yeah!! I never realized how excited I’d be to have a minivan! And, it has way more bells and whistles than we were anticipating getting, including a DVD player, automatic power sliding doors, etc. Praise God!!

Well, that’s what’s happened in a nutshell. I will post more later, but this will do for now…I hope! Mom?? I’m sure the fact that I’m not going to post pictures right now will NOT be sufficient for the Grandma though. Sorry. More to come! Have a great day!!

Edited: here’s a quick picture of our new vehicle. Our picture thing is acting up today, so I can’t seem to do much with pics of Abriella. Patience, dear ones.