December 23rd - Fun Day with Brooks!

I felt a little better today - still tired and a bit of a sore throat, but way better than yesterday.  I guess staying in bed then was a good idea.

My first order of business was to get my grocery shopping done.  I had my list and headed off by 9:00.  I wanted to beat the worst of the crowds, plus I needed to be back home when Brooks was dropped off.  I got everything I needed - well, almost.  I got it all unloaded and put away in time.

Lisa, Ashby, David and Vanett were going to the Atlanta Ballet's Nutcracker, at the Fox, but taking Brooks would not have been a good idea, so he got to come to Grandma's house instead.  He was so good and we had a ball.  He played with the trains for a long time, then got the cars out.  For lunch, he wanted mac & cheese, of course.  When Grandpa got home from his shopping, they played cars some more.

When I walked back into the room where they were playing and asked who wanted to take a nap, Brooks immediately said, "Me!"  He went right down and slept for a couple of hours.  By that time, I was pretty exhausted, too, so I took a nap at the same time.

When everyone was back up, he wanted to play with Grandpa some more, so they played with the block puzzle and the cars.  I was sitting at the computer doing a few things and could hear Brooks and I just kept laughing at his non-stop commentary about things.  So funny!

A family from the ward dropped by during the afternoon, too, to drop off a candle gift.  Very thoughtful!

Bill wanted to run up to Home Depot to pick up something, so the two of them took off.  They hadn't been gone too terribly long when Lisa and crew got back.  They had a great time, starting with lunch at a fancy Thai place in mid-town, then the ballet.  Ashby was just floating and we had to watch all her beautiful ballet moves for quite some time.  She was so cute.

We had a family from the ward come by during that time to carol and leave some candy.  When Bill got home later and found he had missed it, he was really upset.  And he did miss some very nice caroling!

Eventually, Bill and Brooks made it back home.  They had had fun, too, it seems.  Apparently, they had explored a good bit of Home Depot.  Brooks' favorite thing was the refrigerators, where he opened every door on every refrigerator and said, "Wow!" each time.

When they finally headed off to home, everyone was tired.  I was hungry, too, so I ate a bite and headed off to bed early again.  What a fun day with Brooks.  He was perfectly well behaved - we never had any pouting or tantrums or sass, just cute smiles, hugs, laughs, and non-stop talking.