Turkey Day and Non Shopping Black Friday

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays! I mean a day dedicated to eating?! Literally THE best day to be pregnant. At least in my opinion ;)

Traditionally, I make the devilled eggs every year for thanksgiving and for xmas. This year the eggs just wouldn't boil right or cool right and they were a huge pain to peel. But despite the egg mayhem thanksgiving this year was the best one I've had. The only thing that could have made this year better was having Jett and Leila there as well.

There were laughs and talks and jokes made all around. And Joey fit into my family like a glove. It truly made my heart smile to see just how well he got along with everyone. We might have gone home a bit early in the day due to someone either being tired, crabby, or not feeling too well from all the food. And no it wasn't all just me lol!

One thing that makes me upset about this time of year is how ridiculously out of hand "Black Friday" has gotten. It used to be stores just opening 2-3 hours before typical opening time and having really good sales. But now? Stores are starting ON thanksgiving day! People are being selfish and rude by literally trying to veat others to the punch. Now, if you go out in the madness please don't get me wrong. If people weren't as rude or as hypocritical as they've been getting year after year, I wouldn't mind snagging a few deals. But to be honest I didn't really see many deals that would have dragged me into the madness. Its just not my cup of tea.

So, instead, our black friday was spent doing christmas things other than shopping. We listened to christmas music, colored christmas trees and presents, danced while decorating our tree, put up christmas clings on the back door, drank hot chocolate and eggnog (not at the same time), and watched The Grinch with Jim Carrey. Also, add in us ladies going to grandma's and stopping at the store to pick up the previously mentioned hot chocolate and other things.

Over all this holiday has been one of the best starts to the Christmas season that I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. And its only Friday! Tomorrow and Sunday we have big plans :)

-Mrs. C

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

I just wanted to take the time to share just how excited I am for Christmas this year! Thanksgiving is only a few short days away and I couldn't be more excited for this holiday season. There are many reasons why I get excited every year, obviously a big one here in AZ is the fact that we women can finally wear those awesome fall outfits we've been dying to bust out of our closets. A big thing for me every year is wearing boots. I sure love me some boots and the fact that I've been able to wear mine without looking crazy due to the cool weather has me very happy. :)

Of course, Christmas is an incredible time to share the true meaning behind the holiday. And yes, I know that Jesus was really born around mid spring, but that doesn't change the fact that over the centuries the celebration of his birth is December 25th. Jesus was born and the world finally had hope of being saved from their sins. How could you get more magical than that? To me, that's where the 'holiday spirit' comes from. Suddenly people are more understanding, more generous, more kind, more loving, and more jolly than they typically are throughout the year. I believe a lot of this is from the Holy Spirit but it gets lost in translation to just 'what christmas is about'.

Everything about this season just has me giddy like I'm one of the kids instead of a parent. I get overly excited when I find gifts that I know the kids are going to freak out over, I find peace in a hot cup of chocolate, I smile bigger when I know that we get to put up our tree and start listening to christmas music. I just LOVE christmas!

Something that I've tried to do with Julia every year, that I'm hoping to get Jett and Leila into as well, is baking christmas cookies and passing them around our neighborhood with christian tracks in them. I make it all about my daughter when we go. All I do is knock and say, 'Merry Christmas neighbor! I'm here teaching my daughter about how christmas is all about giving and we would like to give you some home made christmas cookies!' My daughter then walks up and hands whomever answered the door (or sometimes their kids that accompanied them) the bag of cookies and says 'Merry Christmas, Jesus loves you!' I do my best to kind of stand back and let my daughter take the reigns on the actual giving part. We also did something very similar to the Walmart employees of our neighborhood walmart that we go to probably more often than we should. ;) For this we took the cheap candy canes in different flavors, wrapped a christian track around a candy cane and tied a little ribbon around it to keep it from falling off. Not only did all of the employees love getting a candy, but most of them could be heard talking about it all over the store. A little girl is passing out candy canes! What better way to show kids that christmas is NOT about getting toys, or about having the best decorations in the neighborhood. But instead it's about giving to those that you might not even know. It might not be a very big thing to do, but I personally believe that the message is clear. Giving is what christmas is about because Jesus was born just to give His life for our sins.

Tonight I couldn't resist any longer and started to get into the christmas spirit. Considering we all didn't have matching stockings and we definitely couldn't afford to buy everyone new ones that they picked out, I simply bought the $1 felt stockings and some glitter pens to write our names on them. I was also able to get all of the christmas decorations we needed in one night for under our budget! Needless to say I'm very excited for Thanksgiving and the friday after to start putting up decorations :D

I can also express just how thankful I am that I did my christmas shopping early and won't have to be involved in any of the 'holiday bustle and tussle' that almost everyone goes through! Phew, definitely dodged a bullet there, LOL. I cannot wait to start making memories with my new little family this year and starting traditions of our own that will last a lifetime. Until next time.

-Mrs. C