Happy Holidays!

I can't believe that Christmas is in less than 3 weeks! I figure I better get this done now because December always seems to come and go in a flash. We had a great Thanksgiving at home this year. The kids all were happy to help, which went over with relatively few incidents.


Caleb made a gorgeous apple pie, but when I got it out of the oven I set it on a burner that I had just used and it hadn't cooled off yet. The glass pie plate shattered and we were all pretty sad about it. Caleb had worked very hard on making the crust look just right. We still had 2 pumkin pies though and the Porter's brought a whole bunch more Thanksgiving night.

Avery wanted to dive into the rolls- of course it's just like playdoh. She did it for an hour! And, she kept sneaking little balls of dough into her mouth, I think that's what really kept her going for so long. Thanksgiving dinner was really nice and low key with just our little family and it was nice to visit with the kids on such a special occasion. I love when we get together with family, but we tend to divide the kids and adults so it was nice to have some special talks with the kids on Thanksgiving day. That evening we met up with some friends and took the kids to see Bolt, which was pretty cute. Caleb laughed so hard he was squealing. There is a silly little hamster in it that he thought was hilarious. Afterwards the Porter family came over for pie and games- and more turkey. I had to turn in a little early that night to prep myself for Black Friday. I love shopping black friday sales, but this year I was pathetically on my own. My family all went to Utah and non of my friends here like to go, they all think I am absolutely crazy for even attempting it. But, I must say I made really good time that way, I was able to shop at Kohls.com Thanksgiving night at 10 then headed out for shopping the 5 am sales the next morning and was back home before 9. It was kinda nice to be on my own schedule and everyone in the lines were very friendly. I have never had one of those crazy shopping experiences you always hear about. Anyways, I had a great time and am all done with shopping! It is so nice to not have to worry about all that, now I need to focus on getting things in the mail, which I am awful about.

We had a blast getting all the Christmas decorations out and putting up the tree, although our tiny tree looks quite pathetic in our new home now. We always thought it was so big in our apartments and when we put it up this year we were surprised at how wimpy it really is. But we were in the decorating mood so that's the one we've got up for this year anyways. The kids could care less and had fun listening to Christmas music and decorating. I am dying to put the presents under the tree, but don't trust Avery to leave them alone. Anyways, this is long enough!

Oh! I wanted to add one more little story. Allen is so embarrassed about this, but the story has been leaked, so here it is. I got pulled over last week because I pulled out of a very well lit parking lot without my lights on. As soon as I turned on to the main road I noticed and flicked them on, right as a cop was passing me- but he saw me turn them on. He flipped around and followed me all the way across town and pulled me over. After I gave him my info he came back and gave me a ticket of $550 for having an expired license! Of course, I started bawling. It's Christmas time! That is our Christmas money! He made me call Allen who was helping a friend cut up his deer to come and get me. The kids were being silent in the back of the car and I was still crying. All of the sudden Caleb just fell apart. He kept saying " I'm so sorry, Mom!" "He's not very nice, I'm sorry." I felt terrible for scaring him so bad so pulled myself together and tried to reassure all of them. Anyways, I was at the church this morning and my friend who I do preschool with said she had to tell me a funny story. Last week at preschool they were talking about service and she asked each of them what they could do for their families. Caleb's answer was "When my mom gets pulled over by the police and she starts crying really hard I can hug her and tell her everythings okay."