Thanksgiving and November with Nathan 2006

As I hunt through our digital archives, it seems that November 2006 was virtually nonexistent. Fortunately, Grandma and Grandpa came to visit that month and took this picture of Nathan:

The caption they put on the picture when they sent it via email said that he was wearing his new jammies. As I type, that same set of jammies is on a 19 month old little boy. Nathan was getting close to 6 months old in this picture. Yeah. Nathan was big . . . and Curtis is small. I consider Nathan's bigness a blessing in that I got to see him "older" than I otherwise would have during his short time with us. I consider Curtis's smallness a blessing, since I get to savor it longer. Lots to be thankful for. Speaking of gratitude, back to the Thanksgiving story.

This year (2010), we have four children, and I am VERY grateful to be going to have our dinner with friends who live just a mile away; I've even walked there with the aforementioned children. Back in 2006, though, it was our first real Thanksgiving as a family with just us, no one visiting from out of town, and us staying put. I very much wanted to make it a good Thanksgiving, and so I went to Aldi to find supplies that fit our student budget. We decided to get a chicken instead of a turkey, since we just had two grownups and two very small children. That chicken was the first whole bird I ever cooked, and I'm pleased to say that with the help of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that Dad (i.e. Nathan's dad) got me for our first Valentine's Day, the chicken turned out remarkably well, and the side dishes turned out well, too. A very pleasant feast indeed. We waited until Amanda was exactly six months old to give her solid food, but Thanksgiving 2006 was just a couple of days before Nathan's half birthday, so I'm pretty sure we let him try some food. He may have had other solid food before then, for all I know, but it makes a better story to say he had his first solid food at Thanksgiving. ;)

A hug from big brother

This is Nathan's newest sibling, a little sister. Because Nathan was once covered in the blanket she is wrapped in, I like to think of it as Nathan giving her a hug. (Don't worry, though, she gets plenty of hugs and kisses from the big brothers she can see, too.)

Getting some patches in place

Our family has been growing rather rapidly, with babies born in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2010. (Kind of makes one wonder what happened to 2008, eh? :) Blessings all of them, but the three close together children at the end do tend to make the normal-but-weird-for-us gap where Nathan would be more noticeable, at least to a self-conscious grieving parent. But, things are feeling a little less empty now, at least to Mom. We've just added a baby sister to the family. The 2009 model is getting bigger and even a tad chubbier, despite his constant activity, which heightens his resemblance to Nathan. All of this is giving me the illusion that I'm getting to see how things would have been had Nathan lived to be a big brother. Illusion or not, though, for whatever reason our 2010 model really makes things seem less empty all of the sudden.

The Return of the Card

We have here an interesting coincidence; above is Nathan, with his beloved card on his birthday. Curtis, the second baby born after Nathan, just had his first birthday. Anybody notice anything the same between these two pictures?

My three sons

I do have three. I hereby shout it to the world in the one place I can do so without answering a lot of questions. I lined up pictures of the three of them on my computer desktop and looked at how alike and different they are. Similarities, definitely, but no clones among them, although Nathan and baby 4 do resemble each other more than baby 3 resembles either of the other two. Anyway, just reaffirming an invisible bit of reality.