Raising Our Family And Trying To Remember It All: November 21-27

We definitely moved away from our broken record this week. Aubrey and I stayed so busy all week. Monday we braved Concord Mills to get some serious Christmas shopping done. I managed to get most of my gifts purchased which was an awesome feeling to have before Thanksgiving. Tuesday was a little more shopping followed by some serious early Thanksgiving cooking. Tuesday evening was our church community group Thanksgiving feast, a meal we have truly come to look forward to all year. Its potluck so no one is stuck with all the cooking and we get to eat some different foods that aren't at our family Thanksgiving meal.

Thursday morning we loaded up Aubrey and the dogs for the 3 hour trip to Raleigh. Since I can't see his family for Christmas this year (since Christmas is 2 weeks from my due date) and Mason could technically arrive by then we decided to go up for Thanksgiving. I was sad not to see my family on Thanksgiving, but that's part of compromising holidays when you're married. Aubrey had a blast playing with all of her cousins and running around the family farm. It was a little tough for me because we had a big air mattress fail which led to me sleeping poorly the entire time, but I survived. The food definitely made up for it as we stuffed ourselves silly for 2 days. I did manage to squeeze in a little Black Friday shopping while I was there, but didn't get any of the deals I was hoping to score while I was out.

We drove back home on Saturday and had decided before we left we would pick our Christmas tree up on our way home. Our usual seller was not in his usual place, which made us sad because we always got a great tree from him. So, we decided to try a new place but when we got there it was busy and the dogs were still in the car so we decided to come back after Aubrey's nap. Going back later turned out to be so much better because we were the only ones there and we could roam much easier without the dogs. We picked out a great tree and had it loaded up before we realized we didn't bring the cash Todd had handed me earlier. Luckily, the sellers were really nice and let Todd bring the cash back after we dropped the tree off at home. We got most of the inside decorating finished on Saturday night and it was so much fun watching Aubrey help with the decorating. I also cleaned out some of Aubrey's old toys from the playroom to make room for the tree and wouldn't you know she decided to start playing with those toys once I threatened to put them away. They are still going to be put up for the time being, but it was fun to watch her play with some of those toys again.

We finished the outdoor decorating on Sunday before heading to Mooresville to help decorate Todd's parents' house and visit with his sister and her boyfriend before eating even more food. By Sunday night we were over all the eating and decorating and glad to be able to sit back and enjoy our efforts.

So, we definitely enjoyed our Thanksgiving holiday but sort of glad to get back to the routine of the week. Only a few weeks until the craziness of Christmas and then Mason's birth so we are going to enjoy our quiet and normalcy until then.