The Olson Family: Thanksgiving 2011 (& a forward facing car seat...)

We spent Thanksgiving in Flagstaff this year. We headed up Wednesday night and came back Saturday afternoon.

*Side note: we turned Peyton's car seat around a few days prior and this was our first big trip with him facing forward. Let me quickly say that the law requires them to ride rear facing until 1 year and 20 lbs, but the new recommendation is that you should keep them rear facing until the age of two. We fully intended to make it to two years old, but decided 1 year & 8 months was pretty good.

It was so awesome having him face forward and has been ever since! (I feel like a horrible mother saying his enjoyment is more important than his safety, but you can look at it in many ways. :)) The pros I never knew that are actually very beneficial, is that he can see EVERYTHING going on. He is learning sooooo much by facing forward. He points out the cars, trucks, tress, birds, he even said "fish" one day and I looked around to see a Long John Silver's sign with a fish on it. Never before was he so involved when riding in the car.

Another plus is that he's exercising his eyes - I read an article that says kids who spend more time outside have better vision because they're not just focusing on things right in front of them as they do when they're inside. When outside, they're looking ahead at trees in the distance, airplanes high in the sky, etc. And when he's riding forward facing, that's just what he's doing - looking far ahead at all the things going on. So again, a little justification as to why this mommy & daddy is happy to say that our son is forward facing before the age of two. :) Now I still do intended to go as long as possible with our next kid rear facing, even after discovering the pros of forward facing. Safety is first, but in this situation we did follow the law... and then we followed our hearts. ;)

Anyway, so we had the most fun ride to Flagstaff with Peyton, he enjoyed all the big rigs on the highway and we enjoyed him being SO QUIET. I must've looked back a hundred times to check if he was asleep, only for him to be WIDE AWAKE with the BIGGEST wide-eyes I've ever seen! He was taking everything in & it was a whole new world for him.

We rolled into town just in time to meet all of the family and extended family for dinner.

Thanksgiving was hosted at Dennis & Joan's house the next day. It's always a fun time of year because that's when you can almost count on all of Steve's extended family to be there. We had a nice time seeing everyone and a very delicious dinner.

Friday was spent hanging out and we went over to Aunt Terri & Uncle Gregg's house to watch the ASU game.

Saturday we headed home after a lazy morning. It was a great Turkey Day weekend!

Here's a ton of pictures of, who else but Peyton, on Thanksgiving Day!