Thinking.

I posted this: My Faith. And art. over at the Faith & Art blog. Still processing.

Thanksgiving recap.

I hope you all had a really great Thanksgiving.  Lianne and the girls were with us and the rest of our immediate family at my parents house.  And most of the day was good.  It was just long.  And still so close to having lost Sam that things just felt odd.  I can't say, "we'll get used to it."  Because I don't think we will.  I know Lianne never will.

In an attempt to remember that we do still have things to be thankful for, here's my little recap of our weekend...

Wednesday evening I cooked turkey #1.  All 20 lbs of him.  Rusty carved him up and we stashed it in the fridge for the next day.  Thursday morning I cooked turkey #2 (a mere 12 pounder.)  He went to my parents house all in one piece.  By the time we left we had one carved turkey, one whole turkey, multiple pans of buttered egg noodles, cranberry-orange relish, stuffing and butter beans leaving the house with us, heading to my mom's for dinner with multiple family members.  It was yummy.

Friday morning I hauled my booty out of bed only so I could meet up with three friends from high school.  My WW posse, if you must know - Jen, Amer and Laurie.  Laurie was in town from KY and it was so good to see her.  We spent three hours at Panera and it was just so comfortable.  I forgot how nice it is to be around people who've known you your whole life.  I appreciated not having to explain the stuff with Sam... because they were living it as well.  I've known Jen since kindergarten and Laurie since first grade.  Amer came along in high school and we were best friends almost the moment we met.  I honestly love these women and cherish their friendship.

Friday night, Jen and Amer showed up to party down (a.k.a. order Chinese food and watch ELF though we ended up ordering the food and talking for five hours instead.)  Much needed talk.  

On Saturday, Rusty finally made his way home from his overnight of fun and somewhat inebriated frivolity at Chris and Derek's.  We took the boys out and picked out a Christmas tree!  I'm excited because in Maryland we always ordered a live tree from our church (Cedar Ridge spoiled us - every year our tree was beautiful!)  When we got here for some reason we put up an artificial tree that bugged me.  This year Rusty and I made the executive decision to go live again.  We picked up a beauty for cheap!

It's all lit up... old school.  

But we have yet to dig out the ornaments.  It's been a long few weeks... we'll get to it!  The candles are in the windows and other stuff is around so it's getting more and more festive every day.

Yesterday was my niece, Callie's, birthday party.  She turned three today.  She's a riot and a sweetheart and I'm so glad she's ours.  Lianne's house was full of shrieking girls and rowdy boys with my parents, the four of us kids with our spouses and our own kids running around like loons.  There was dancing (to the Wiggles.  The birthday girl requested it.) and hysterical laughter as we watched some of the grandkids bust a move elf style.  If I can embed it, I'll post it here.  It's cute.

Then today Sean was home with a sore throat.  Not strep, thankfully, as we were at the pediatrician's office this morning.  

But it was cold and then snowy so we came home and ate soup and watched it snow while I did laundry.

So there you go.  I know you all believe I live the life of a rock star (it's ok.  It's an understandable mistake, I'm sure.)  But that was our long weekend.  I didn't promise excitement, just a recap.  And if I owe you email or a phone call, have mercy and know that life is kicking our butts right now.  We'll get to it eventually...