The Start of the Holidays

              Our holidays started a couple of days earlier than usual this year with a third grade production of the Nutcracker.  Carson's class were cast as mice warriors and much to his delight he was able to  participate in a pretend sword fight scene where he feigned getting stabbed in the stomach.   He was so excited for the performance and refused to sing any of the songs for us beforehand so that they would be a surprise.  It was really cute and a lot of fun to watch.  
       This year we hosted Thanksgiving at our house.   This was a first in Mike and I's married life.  Previously our Thanksgivings consisted of Mike playing in some sort of Turkey Bowel while the kids and I stayed home in our jammies watching the Macey's Parade.  I would often go on a run when Mike returned, for the past few years we emptied our Thankful bucket as a family (a bucket we leave out for the week leading up to Thanksgiving and fill with things we are thankful for) and then around 1:00 it would be time to get some real clothes on, throw together the salad or appetizer we had been assigned and show up at one of our parent's houses.  
      Hosting made for a little bit different experience and we now appreciate the work that goes into Thanksgiving  It is a lot of work, but it was fun and worth it.  And we did have a lot of help.  Both my mother-in-law and sister-in-law helped bring things for the dinner (my mother in law made all the pies which was HUGE) and Mike and I stayed up late the night before doing a lot of the prep and cleaning, so Thanksgiving morning was actually pretty calm.  Mike was still able to sneak away for a quick Turkey Bowl game (and Carson joined him), we were able to take some time as a family and empty our Thankful bucket, and we even able to play outside as a family for a while (it was a gorgeous day).  After such a calm morning, the start of dinner was a little crazy and rushed.   Mike was left to get all the food/last minute stuff out while I was upstairs giving a three year old a bath. Without going into details, we will just say it was a very messy number 2 accident.   I was able to get everything taken care of with that and then we went downstairs to join back in the festivities.  
     All of Mike's family was able to make it at some point (one brother came later in the evening) and his aunt was able to join us for dessert which was a lot fun.  Unfortunately, the only pictures I got was when Elliot woke up (he napped through dinner, which was a definite plus for having it at our house!) and ate some Thanksgiving sweet potatoes.  


Our little turkey on this first Thanksgiving

Oh, and I also snapped this random picture from Thanksgiving night when Mason came down after he got in pajamas all by himself. 

The day after Thanksgiving is close to holiday status at our house.  That is the day we get out our Christmas decorations and the kids literally count down the to it.  On their own that morning, the three older ones dragged all the Christmas bins out of the closet and were ready to start decorating before I had even ate breakfast.  We spent the morning listening to Christmas music and getting the decorations set up and transforming our house into holiday mode.  Being in a new house this year, we had to find new places to put everything.  We also are still in the process of decorating and hanging pictures so Christmas really filled up our house and the empty spaces this year and really made our house feel like our home.
That afternoon while Mike hung Christmas lights, Elliot napped, and Mike and Carson watched the Rose Bowl I took Mason and Abby on a date to see Frozen (which we absolutely loved!)  Later that evening, my parents, Mal, Brandon and kids, and Mat came over.  We combined leftovers for Thanksgiving Dinner #2, talked, played games, and watched Studio C clips while the kids played happily with their cousins.  
Uncle Mat and Carson in their Huskies gear.  These two have always had a special relationship and I love it.  

Saturday we hit up our one and only Thanksgiving weekend sale, went to Target and purchased a fake tree for 50% off (and had our credit card information later stolen from that trip, but that is not part of the Thanksgiving Day weekend story).  We had debated a fake tree for a couple of years and I had mixed feelings about it.  I missed the smell of a real tree, but I loved being able to set it up Thanksgiving weekend and leave it until New Years Day and I did not miss the daily cleaning of pine needles.  
Our tree is a hodge podge of ornaments from when Mike and I were kids, things the kids have made, and ornaments we have collected and been given over the last eleven years.  Many of the ornaments have a story and I love them.  We let the kids do most of the placing and decorating and although I did do a little adjusting after they went to bed, for the most part we left it how they had done it.  





We decorated while Elliot was asleep and he was quite interested in the tree when he came down.  We put all the ornaments out of his reach and besides that initial curiosity about what a tree was doing in his house, he surprisingly left it alone for the most part (this was amazing since he seems to be our most busy baby so far).  

I have been trying to learn to use my camera on manual and the result has been some pictures I'm really excited about mixed in with a lot of blurry pictures.  The above is an example of a blurry picture, but it is all the kids in their Christmas jammies in front of the decorated tree and the best I got, so I am documenting it.   

By the end of Thanksgiving weekend, we were rested, well fed, decorated and ready to start the Christmas season!

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