Spencer's 26th Birthday Weekend

We went to Grand Haven this past weekend to celebrate Spencer's birthday with his family. Spencer's Dad works in Bay City, so we caught a ride with him as he drove home on Friday and back to work on Sunday. That was great for us to not have to drive or pay for gas!

I was so worried about bringing everything we'd need with us. I packed two outfits for each day and like 50 diapers. And blankets and an extra swaddling one in case Melanie exploded on her swaddleme. Well, we were there for a whole hour when Melanie had a blowout on her outfit and it had to go in the washer. She also had a HUGE blowout on Saturday, but I'll get to that.

We got there Friday night and had some awesome soup and homemade pretzels that mom had waiting for us. Then we hung out and passed Melanie around. I hardly had to hold her all weekend! So much, in fact, that I missed holding her and would sometimes just keep her for a while after I was done feeding her. I need my Melanie snuggles, too! (But I'm making Spencer go and rock Melanie for a few minutes as I type this. She's been in the going to bed process for an hour now.)

Melanie slept pretty well Friday night, but she didn't really go down until almost 1. Lucky for us, she slept in so we could too. Spencer and Mom went out shopping for his birthday present - a new winter coat - and I did the baby stuff and made some pizza dough in the morning. Alan (a friend from Ironwood) and Courtney (Alan's girlfriend) came over to the house for lunch! They are in school at GVSU, so it's a quick trip for them up to Grand Haven. We had a good time talking and then playing with Melanie after lunch. It's so fun to see them, and I love that Alan and I can go years without seeing each other and just pick it right back up.

Spencer spent a couple of hours studying Saturday afternoon, and then I kicked Mom and Spencer's trash at Racko. (Later, Spencer kicked all of our trash at Ticket to Ride.) That night we went out for dinner at Texas Roadhouse, which was so good, and Melanie slept the entire time and then some! So we finally woke her up to feed her and change her into PJs before we went to bed. As I was feeding her she filled her diaper, except instead of filling her diaper it went right up the back of her onesie. Seriously, it was such a huge mess. I leaned her forward and saw all the mess that had leaked through to her blanket and just called Spencer in for back up. She was so messy that I ended up hopping into the shower with her while Spencer scrubbed out her blanket and pants and started the laundry. We threw her onesie away because there was no way that huge stain was coming out. We finally got to sleep after that and she did fine for the rest of the night.

That's a little finger mark from laying on her hand in the picture above. 

Church was nice on Sunday. I took Melanie into the mothers' room to feed her during Sacrament meeting and after she ate and got a new diaper on she was in a really good mood. She cooed at me for a little while before I brought her back into the Chapel. Then I gave her to Mom to hold and she kept looking at me and giving me these big smiles and coos. After a while she noticed Mom and then she gave her the biggest, goofiest grins she could with a nice laugh. I think half the chapel heard her.

After church we had a nice roast dinner and birthday cake. We visited for a couple more hours until Melanie started to get tired. I nursed her and then we finished packing up our stuff. She ended up losing it and then I kind of lost it and said we needed to leave 15 minutes ago. She was pretty upset for the first several minutes of our drive, then she basically passed out and slept the rest of the way home. I had forgotten Spencer's birthday gifts at home, so I gave them to him before we watched a show and then went to bed. I got him a sweater and a shirt, which sounds lame, but I think he likes them.