Firsts ...

As we were going through this adoption process, I would get a little sad  from time to time at all the firsts I'd miss, Aiden's  first tooth, first laugh, first everything.  So in the last 7 months, WOW he's been with us for 7 months now!  As I was saying, in the last 7 months, we've seen quite a few firsts I guess, but this last weekend, we took our first family trip as a family of four! That's a major first if you ask me! ;) This past Saturday we left for Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Since Aiden had never been in the car for more than an hour ride, I was a bit nervous, actually, the idea of the whole trip made me very nervous. We left around lunch, after about an hour in the car, Aiden finally fell asleep.  Pretty peaceful ride, but after only an hour Aiden woke up.  I was sitting in the back with him, so I kept him occupied with snacks, tickle sessions, and a drink.  He did great! Oh btw, hubby borrowed this awesome ride for the short trip.  Love those perks!

We finally arrived at our hotel in Pigeon Forge, settled in and walked down the road to get something to eat.

  Dinner was great, Texas Roadhouse! Went back to the room to get ready for bed. Aiden had other ideas.

Since Aiden had never slept in anything besides his bed at our house, my only other option was to borrow a Pack N Play from a friend of mine, Thanks Lee Ann!!! :) I was so nervous on how he would sleep in it.  He's not the best sleeper really, so I was of course worried, I'm a nutcase like that! The little guy was really tired that first night, I gave him a bath, put his pj's on, then laid him down on my bed with me. He rolled around a bit, then he was out, fell asleep on me.  I layed him in this:

and he stayed asleep till around 4 am.  Heard his usual cry at this time, but he fell back asleep - yah!  He woke the next morning around 6:30! Awesome! So his first in a Pack N Play went well.  The hotel had Disney Junior, I was more excited about it than Aiden was but I caught this little picture when he was watching it the second morning.

Taylor was bored waiting on the rest of us to get ready so this is how she spent her time.  Aiden I guess thought it was funny.

After breakfast we took off up the hill to Gatlinburg.  If was the first time Aiden had spent so much time in his stroller. I guess there was so much to look at, he did awesome!

After leaving Gatlinburg, Aiden crashed in the car on the ride back down the hill, got to the hotel, I put Aiden down for his nap in the P N P and Mike and Tay went to play put put golf and rode go carts.  After that was dinner time, walked up the road for dinner and back to get ready for bed.  Aiden was super tired that night, went to sleep on me again, put him in the P N P,  and woke the next morning happy.

We left for home but made a stop at the Knoxville Zoo.  Aiden did awesome there too.  Towards the end of the walking we let him out of the stroller to run around a bit, and boy did he run, poor little guy wore himself out! Here's some pics.

Red Panda Bears! They were so cute!

Bottle feeding the babies!

So we had a great weekend.  It was great to get away, and we all enjoyed some of Aiden's firsts, so did he!