Catching up

G-man had to make a pinata for his Spanish class over Thanksgiving break. This is the final project. His name is Snowball.

The day after Thanksgiving our Zoo and Fairytale Town are free. (just bring a canned food donation, or not they'll still let you in) We had a great time and we got there before the crowds. I guess everyone was still shopping at 10am.

Sweet Pea and Mr. E enjoying their turkey legs. It took them two days to eat them.

This year was pretty mellow. My sister and her family usually come up every other year, this was the other year so we invited Grandma and Grandpa to share in the festivities. Everything was delicious and we had a great time. After dinner, hubby's sister and family came up for dessert and we hung out and played Apples to Apples. The day went by much too fast.

What's Thanksgiving without football? On Thanksgiving morning our friends host a football game at their house. Hubby has gone for the past 8 years, as the kids have gotten older, they have joined him too, but this is the first year I've ever gone because I'm usually home preparing dinner. I tried to snap a couple pictures of the game. Hopefully you can pick out G-man and Mr. E. Hubby was somewhere else on the field. All in all a fun-filled day. Now, it's already December and it's time to look ahead to Christmas (I can only think about one holiday at a time) Now, I'm ready to put all my energy into Christmas. On Monday for family night we got all the decorations out and put up our tree. I have to say that I didn't do anything! My children are at the age where they want to do the decorating and being the nice mom that I am, I let them! Ok, Ok, the next day I did have to spread some of the Christmas ornaments around the tree so they weren't all clustered in one spot and I put some garland on my staircase. But I just watched as they unpacked ornaments and decorations like they were seeing them for the first time and listening as they reminisced about who made what ornament and when. It's wonderful. It might not be Pottery Barn perfect but I'm ok with that. Although, it's only been the last couple years that I've let that fantasy go. With age, I've come to the realization that my house will never look like a magazine cover. So there is no reason to stress about it. I used to get so frustrated and stressed out when the kids would rip open all the Rubbermaid boxes and start pulling things out and putting them up with no rhyme or reason. But now I just let them. I might have to move or rearrange later but that's ok because they are having fun and working together to create their own beauty and traditions that hopefully they will always remember. I love Christmas!