Category Archives: family
Mind Blowing
Let me just start this post by saying my husband and kids rock my world in every single way possible. We had gotten home from dinner and it was time for presents. First up, E’s present, I got a rolling pin. This is awesome because I don’t own a rolling pin, I don’t need one very often but a few weeks ago I did and when it was time to roll out the dough I had to improvise by using a drinking glass. That didn’t work out to well. Now when that recipe makes it’s round back to the table, I will kick it’s ass with my new rolling pin! Next up W’s present, I am now a proud owner of Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare. The shoot’em up games are new in our household. We started with Halo 3 and now are on Halo Reach. Love these games and I am on the verge of needing therapy. The difference between Halo and Call of Duty is in Halo you are shooting and killing aliens of some sort, in Call of Duty you are killing humans. I have a very uneasy feeling about this. Yes I am a whimp. Finally it was time for B’s present, he handed me a bag with a nicely wrapped box inside. I pull it out and start to open it up. All I can see is a white box as I tear at the paper. I tear off the last of the paper and it’s still just a white box…I flip it over and this happened…
Yes, he managed to blow my mind! It was an iPad! He got me an iPad! No way! I flipped out just a bit. Totally was blind sided by this gift, I was not expecting it in any way. I was expecting a new cutting board if you want to know the truth. 
B wins the best gift of the year award! I love you B! You rock my world!
On to the next order of business….Today is my sister’s Birthday! My lovely little sister has officially entered the world of the 30′s. Ha-Ha! *said like the Simpson’s character*
I can’t believe my little sister is 30, that is mind blowing in itself. She is the best sister in the world and now she is old..old…old. I feel very fortunate to have a sister that I am close to, that I consider my best friend and that I know will be there for me through anything. To you sister…Happy Birthday!
Love you Linds!
Now if you will excuse me, I have to go play on my iPad!
It’s Party Time
Saturday was the big day and it was long and hot one! We had a great time with family and friends. There was about 25 people that showed up throughout the day, a lot of people ended up being out of town and a few ended up having to work. That sucked but we still had a good time. I didn’t take as many pictures as I had planned because I couldn’t stay out of the pool long enough, it was so damn hot and I didn’t think taking my camera in the pool was the brightest idea. 
Here are a few that I will share, hopefully my sister doesn’t check my blog anytime soon because she will probably kill me for a few!
Linds, W, E and Dad
I had these all over the pool house..heehee
The pool house
Time for cornhole. Linds & Jordan
Dad and Wyld
Silly Mandy, you can't drink Moonshine through a snorkel
Nat and Jordan
Linds getting her old person care package. 1st up - Adult Diapers
Rock'n the Diaper. She would so kill me for posting this one!
Linds in her MooMoo complete with reading glasses.
Soon after this last picture was taken it was game on. We started flippy cup and that was all she wrote. There wasn’t anymore picture taking..just drinking.
Of course no party is complete without a weirdo. A friend of my sister’s brought his friend and he was something else. You know the dude that gets too hammered too quick and just doesn’t know when to stop. Yeah that dude..he was there. Thank god he finally went to his car and passed out!
All in all the party was a success. Everyone had a great time!
The Low of a Battle
Image via Wikipedia
It’s hard to watch someone you care about get sick, to wither away down to nothing, to try to stay strong for everyone around them, but yet get tired of trying. It’s hard to watch someone you love struggle with watching this happen to someone close to them. You watch their face change from day to day with the ever changing news from good to bad to good to bad.
What I am talking about is my sister and her best friend’s struggle with Ovarian Cancer, we will call her BC. When I see my sister stressed out from worry, I feel it too. I worry about her and what is going through her mind…the stress, the worry, the concern, the sadness, the empty feeling that is growing in her heart, the hope that she has and the want for that to stay strong. BC was my sister’s best friend since the day she moved here. BC has become part of our family, she has become like a second sister.
BC is in an awful battle with ovarian cancer but is also struggling with staying strong…putting up the fight that it takes to make it through. BC has had a rough road as of late with multiple hospital stays, the last two lasting 2-3 weeks each. She is struggling with her weight, she is down to 85 pounds. She is struggling with the Chemo treatments, keeping food in her system, hydration etc. She no longer wants to get out of bed for a short walk around her apartment. Yesterday my sister got a phone call from BC saying she hasn’t been feeling well and she has decided to go to the doctor to see what is going on again. She called back after going to the doctor to tell my sister that she is being admitted once again to the hospital and asked her to come sit with her while her boyfriend and sister go home to pack for the stay. We were in a store finishing up some shopping with this call came in. On the way home my sister received another call from a friend explaining the truth behind the hospital admittance. I hear my sister in disbelief in the backseat, my heart dropped, my mind went to the worst news, I drove in silence waiting for the call to end to be updated. We arrive home and she hangs up with her friend and she is livid. My stepmom and I ask what is going on and brace ourselves for bad news. The truth was that BC had begged to be admitted to the hospital. My sister is shaking with anger, BC has given up and wants to be in the hospital. BC is surrounded by people that love her, that are asking her to stay strong and fight. BC has fought, she has fought long and hard but she is becoming tired. That is to be expected.
The question is when as a friend do you cross that line and get in her face and let her know that she must not give up..she must keep fighting. Is it completely out of line to tell BC to quit being selfish and fight not only for herself but for everyone around her?
BC agreed earlier to seeing a counselor to help her mind through this. She has yet to talk to anyone, she has also stopped taking her depression medicine. This is not good. BC can be a handful when she is not in a good mood (which woman can’t be) and of course everyone around her is trying to keep her as happy as can be. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But when do you say enough is enough and take the chance and intentionally piss her off and say point blank..You will talk to someone whether you like it or not, you will take your medication, you will keep fighting..you will not give up! Your intention is not to make her mad and upset but help her to deal with the cards that she has been dealt. Her loved ones don’t want to cause any unnecessary stress, I wouldn’t either but yet you don’t want to see BC give up and say she can’t do this anymore. No one wants to hear that. No one wants to lose the gem that BC is to this world. She is loved by all and the world would become a shade darker without her in it.
My sister left my house yesterday afternoon with this struggle. As a friend when do you cross that line and quit enabling her to make this choice of giving up. When do you look her in the eye and say “you will not give up and leave me, your family, and yourself”. I have yet to hear what all happened last night at the hospital but I can only hope for the positive.
I was talking to someone else about all of this last night and their outlook is not good. I wanted to jump through the phone and strangle this person. You can’t think negatively! I don’t want to hear your reality outlook on the situation and so help me god if this person says what was said to me to my sister I will have words with them and it won’t be pretty. I do believe they know better but still, I wouldn’t put it past them.
I refuse to let my thoughts turn negative. We all must stay positive, have beautiful thoughts of recovery and victory for BC. She needs the strength from everyone around her, everyone that loves her more now than ever.
We love you BC, stay strong, stay with us and fight.
In Your Honor – Always Say I Love You.
You must always say I love you. Life is too short not to. You never know when someone will be leaving your life. I have a story for you and I hope it will open your eyes to two things. On May 26, 2005 I got a phone call from my step father. He told me that my mom was not feeling well. She had been having severe headaches for awhile now and she had been to the doctor to get a couple of lumps under the skin removed. She told my sister and I that it was “nothing”. He told me that he had called an ambulance to take mom to the hospital. My sister and I live in Nashville Tennessee and my mom lives in Aurora Indiana. I hung up the phone not knowing what to think. My husband told me to pack my bags and my sister also and head up home because it could be nothing and then again it could be something big. As my sister was walking down the driveway with my 3 year old son I was shaking. She came in and I told her what was going on. We packed up and the kids too ( a 3 year old and a 5 week old) and headed for Indiana. We pulled up out front of my mom’s house around 4 am and my stepdad was waiting for us he had not been asleep. They took her to the local hospital and had ran a CT scan and found 4 spots on her brain. While trying to take this news in I took the kids upstairs and put them to bed and tried to get some sleep myself. In the morning (Friday) I took the kids to my sister-n-law’s house and my sister and I headed to Cincinnati. By this time they had sent her to Good Sam in Cincinnati for further tests. We get to the hospital and she is in the ICU. My sister and I are pretty much freaking out to say the least. My mom god love her says what on earth are you two doing here and where are the kids? I love my mom always worried about my kids. They ran some tests in the morning and before lunch we got news that my mom had 7 brain tumors. This was a total shock because before yesterday there was nothing (that we knew of) wrong with my mom except for the headaches which she covered up nicely. The doctor said that they were NON life threatening and they could be taken care of with surgery and radiation. My sister and I left for lunch feeling a little relieved thinking in the long run she was going to be ok. We got back from lunch and they were wheeling her out for her first radiation treatment and they told us to go along. The three of us went down with her. When we got there the radiologist took my step dad back to talk to him and we stayed out with mom. She was even joking about her tan going away. My step dad came out and told us to come back with him. My heart dropped. The three of us sat down with the doctor and he proceeded to tell us that our mother was covered with cancer from head to toe. She had melanoma. Every organ in her body was ate up. He told us that we had a decision to make. We could go ahead with the treatments but the end result was all the same. Mom could stay with us for two days or with a miracle two months. But it didn’t look good. We made the decision to not do the treatments and put her through any unnecessary pain. We would only be keeping her around for our selfish reasons. That was the hardest decision I have ever made in my life, my mother’s fate was put in our hands pretty much. We made the decision to get her home as soon as we could so she could spend her last days in her own home with her own things. I can’t explain to you what was going on in my head. I became numb and stayed that way for about a month. We went home that night to try to get some rest and was called back to the hospital around 12:15 in the morning. The nurse said her pupils weren’t responding and that is one of the first signs that they are going. We all had just got to bed and hopped right back up and I took the keys to drive us up. It was the weirdest drive I have ever made. It was barely raining but there was a very eery silent calm in the air. In the distance I saw lightning and all I could think was that was mom fighting for us. We got there and she wouldn’t even respond to us. No movement but she was still there. We slept on the floor all around her that night. I got up about 8 in the morning and walked in her room from the restroom and she opened those eyes and like nothing happened said what on earth are you doing here this early. She didn’t skip a beat. The nurses said they can’t explain how this happened. They’ve never seen someone start to slip away the way she did and come back like nothing happened. That Saturday was one of the best days. Mom sat up in her bed she ate all day she laughed and cut up with us like nothing in the last two days happened. She just kept saying she wants to go home and that she is so happy that Lindsey (my sister) and I have each other. We had made arrangements for her to come home at 12:30 the next day, Sunday. We had hospice coming to the house to set everything up. Mom was coming home. We left her that night eating her Mentos and watching HGTV her favorite channel. That woman would watch it 24/7 if she could. We told her that we loved her and she was coming home in the morning. We got up Sunday morning and headed up early. When we got there mom was in pain, bad pain. Her head was hurting so bad. We sat there with her for a couple of hours and the nurse gave her some pain medicine and mom wanted to take a nap. We left her at 10:30 to come home and meet with the hospice people. We told her we would see her in a couple of hours. I held her hand and told her that I loved her and she said it back to me and she squeezed my hand. We were at home when we got a phone call at 11:30 saying mom’s vitals weren’t good. Five minutes later they called back and said her breathing was slowing. My sister and stepdad headed up to the hospital and I stayed behind waiting for my grandma and my husband. I called back up to the hospital at 11:46 and she had already passed away at 11:45. The nurses were all in there with her so she wasn’t alone. We were too late. She never made it home.
You never know how much time you have. Always say I love you, even if you are just running to the store and will be back in 10 minutes even if you fighting say it. You never know when its the last time.
Please do not be sad from my story. Just remember…Always say I love you.
Thank you for taking the time to read it.
My mom loved the sun. She always had a tan. We were always outside during the summer growing up whether we were on the boat for the weekend or at the pool. Hell, we grew up with a tanning bed in our home. My mom has psoriasis and the tanning bed helped with that. With summer upon us and the outdoors being our favorite place to be I ask of you this, please wear your sunscreen, wear your sunhat, protect yours skin. I suggest against tanning beds now but if you feel you must please do it in moderation. Melanoma is a deadly cancer when undetected it can consume you, it’s one of the quickest spreading cancers. I still love the sun but I am smart about it now. I hope you will be too. If you see a mole that is suspicious don’t hesitate to get it looked at. Get your skin checked once a year to be safe. Melanoma is nothing to be messed around with or ignored.
All it takes is the Month of May & a Trigger.
I really don’t like May in all honesty. I don’t care for Mother’s day or the end of the month. The whole month is just one big emotion.
I knew it was coming, I just didn’t know when. It is here now. All it took was a trigger, that one thing to bring it on. This year it was a movie. Just that one little scene and I can’t deny it any longer. What sucks is that I’m trying to hide it, my kids are home. I don’t like for them to see me like this. I don’t like for them to see me cry, I don’t want them to see me being weak. So I am hiding on the porch praying that I can get through this without them noticing. I don’t like to talk about it with them.
In 10 days it will be 6 years. 6 years since she was taken away from me and from my sister. This time 6 years ago she was coaching me with my newborn, Emily was only 4 1/2 weeks old. She only got to see her granddaughter one time for 3 days. One time. Emily was barely 6 weeks old when she went. It kills me inside. My heart feels like it is being torn apart in 3 different directions. It hurts. As time has passed it has gotten easier but at times like this it hurts like hell all over again. I can picture her, the image is so vivid in my mind, I hope it never fades. I miss her so much that I want to scream. I see her with her smile that could make anyone smile. I see her with her tan, her nails done to a T and her hair with not one out of place. I want to hear her giggle, her special laugh. I want to smell her, I want to touch her, I want her hug. I want to walk with her holding her hand and never ever let go. I want my mom back.
She would be so proud of me. She would be so proud of my kids. She would shower them with so much love and affection. She would love them like no other could. They were loved by her and I hope they can feel her love in some little way. Will has a few memories of her, he was 2 when she passed. When I hear him talk about her it makes me smile so big and yet tugs at my heart so strong. I am thankful he had those 2 years and has kept the few memories he has close to his heart. Never let them go baby, never. She was a woman who was so strong, she had so much love for me and my sister. She was the best mom in the world.
I long to hear her say “Jamie Dawn” or “Lindsey Sue”. I want to hear her say “Hello” in her quirky little way that we only would. Her favorite saying was ”Oh shit Oh well”. Then we would laugh and all was better.
I want to dance with her again. I want to be in the living room with her music playing and her grab me up off the couch to dance the way her and I would. It was our dance. It was our ‘thing’. I get my love of music and dancing from her. I thank her from the bottom of my heart for that.
I will always dance…for her. I want to always dance with my kids. I want them to “Always Dance Like No One Is Watching”. Just like my she taught me.
Still to this day I look at the phone wishing I could call her. We used to talk at least 3 times a day when she was here. That was and still to this day is one of the hardest things to get used to…Knowing she will never be on the other end again. She was my mom, she was my best friend. She would side with me even if I was wrong just so I would feel better. She would tell me everything was going to be ok and it would. She would give me a hug and my world was bright again. She brightened a room with her smile and laugh. I believe there will always be a shadow in the corner because she is not here to brighten it. I know that is where she is.
Where ever she might be, I know a part of her is always with me, watching over me, my kids, my family, my sister.
How I miss her.
Happy Birthday to You My Beautiful Little Girl
Today is a special day, My sweet, beautiful little girl turns 6 today.
E is one of the most sweet little girls you will ever have in your life. She is my little ray of sunshine. She lights up a room with her smile, she can make you laugh with her complete and utter randomness, she can make you feel better with just a hug. She is a joy to have around all the time.
She brings so much to the world with her smile, laughter, wit, sarcasm, randomness, sense of humor, and her stunning beauty.
I want so much to give her the world but yet shield her of it at the same time. I never want to see her get hurt even though I know heartbreaks will come, unpleasant situations will arise, life will be bumpy from time to time. I hope she knows that I will always have her back, I will always be here for her, and forever love her more than the world itself.
She is my little fnkybee in training.
The world wouldn’t be as bright as it is today without her in it.
Happy Birthday to you my sweet baby girl, I love you more than you will ever know.
I have been reminded….
On yesterday’s post a comment was left by Mr. Anthony and part of it read “Careful not to miss it all once Christmas arrives!”. Excellent point my friend and you got me thinking. It is so easy to get caught up in the holiday stress, the ‘to do lists’, finding that perfect gift, and running around that you stop enjoying the holiday. December is a great month but that can easily be lost in the holiday craziness of parties, events, shopping, wrapping, and running around like you have gone mad that you start cursing the holiday and the month itself. I mean even going shopping, if you stop and look around what percentage of people that you are shopping with have a sour, I am going to kill someone look on their face? That’s not very Christmasy. I have been guilty of it but it’s usually because I have encountered someone who is a Scrooge who has now put a damper on my day. I always try to keep a positive attitude while I am out and about, especially during the holidays, holding doors for moms with kids in tow or the elderly, I always try to smile at people I pass, say hello. I don’t want to be that person that looks like I could break at any given christmas moment. Why do we let ourselves do that? Do we blame the media for all the hype, ourselves for allowing the madness to take over, or is it just holiday on top of our already too busy lives? I don’t know but I am slowing down right now and reassessing the holiday. No more stressing, no more worrying. Its the time of year to relax and enjoy each other, friends, family..to be thankful for everything that we have in our lives. It is the time of year to stop looking at all the material things, the ‘stuff’ that doesn’t really matter. Yes we are fortunate to have what we have, to be able to give the gifts that we do, to make our kids and family’s wish lists come true but when it comes right down to it..does that stuff really matter? No. I am not saying I am going to go return all the gifts that I have bought or stop shopping for the rest of the season I am just going to kick it back a notch and settle down a bit, enjoy this time with my family, be thankful for what we have and the family around us and most of all enjoy the upcoming two and a half weeks I have with the kids and the week I am going to have with my husband. I am going to quit thinking everything has to be perfect (gifts included), let the kids help me wrap the presents without jumping all over them for putting the tape in the wrong place, I am just going to chill out a bit and relax. I have let myself stress about the perfect gifts for everyone, wanting to get them exactly what is on their wish list..where is the element of surprise in that? There is none. Yes I have gifts for people that are exactly what they want but I have now reminded myself that this does not have to be the case with every single gift. I used to be so good at giving great random gifts or making gifts that when the recipient opened it they had a huge smile on their face because it was something they weren’t expecting. I somehow have let that go to they way side this year. Have I let my inner Santa runaway? Well today I am playing hide and go seek with my inner Santa and I will win and bring back the great random gifts. One of the best gifts I have ever received was a tin box full of 365 random sayings and quotes, one to be pulled out each day, from my sister. No she did not go out and purchase this gift, it was made by her and I still walk by it and pull a random saying out and it always puts a smile on my face and makes my day. Gifts like that are truly the best.
So from here on out I vow to slow down, relax, chill out, and remember the true meaning of Christmas. I will enjoy every moment I have with my family. And the big one….I will try real hard not to start wishing school was back in after the first week they are out.
When they still believe.
Image by George Eastman House via Flickr
As a child the majority of us believed in Santa and what fun times they were making our lists, marking the catalogs, writing the letter, sitting on his lap in the mall asking for a million things, making the plate of cookies and milk to sit out and of course the reindeer food, you can’t forget them! I remember waking my sister up at the crack of dawn saying “Santa came, Get Up!”. We would both run to the living room, gasp at the gifts and run to wake up mom and dad. They would get up, Mom would turn on the Christmas Music and the morning would begin. What wonderful memories.
My kids are now 8 and 5 and I am thrilled to say they both still believe in Santa Claus. I am coming to terms with the fact that this will most likely be the last year my son (8) will believe and it makes me sad. I can only hope that when he does figure it out he plays along with for awhile longer for the fun of his sister still believing. But for now they both still do and it is so much fun. My husband has them both convinced that he talks to Santa once a month throughout the year. He will walk in the room and say to the kids “I talked to Santa today and he asked how you two were doing and if you are behaving”. Each time the kids light up and my daughter gets this cheesy grin on her face. Its priceless. My daughter just asked me the other day as she pointed to the fireplace, “How does Santa get down our chimney and not hurt his butt on the pointy things?” Oh Santa is magic! He never gets hurt! There is something special when you hear your kids talk about Santa and see the excitement on their faces. Just this morning my daughter looked at me and said “It’s almost Christmas!” Yes I told her just 25 more days. She lit up like the Christmas tree. I have a feeling that this will be the best year yet. I take it all in because one day they will figure it out and the excitement of Santa will soon be lost. I hope to always keep the excitement and the thought of Santa alive like my mom did for us. Up until we moved out my mom would get up in the middle of the night and sit out Santa’s gifts for us. So yes up until I was 18/19 years old Santa always came and we were always surprised by what he would bring.
One day last year I heard a debate coming from my son’s room between him and his buddy. His best buddy, Jman, doesn’t believe anymore, ever since he called his mom out last year. I overheard my son say something about Santa and Jman immediately chimed in with “there is no Santa”. I about fell out of my chair while screaming “Nooooooo!” I went in to intercept the conversation immediately and before I got in the room I hear my son say “yes there is my dad talks to him all the time”. Shew! My son was not having any of the ‘there is no Santa’ business. Awwweee..and relax. I thought for sure he would come running in to me asking questions I wasn’t prepared to answer nor did I want to answer. That was not the case thank goodness. Safe for just a little while longer. I pulled Jman in the living room with me and explained to him that both of my kids still believe and he must play along and that while he was in my house I didn’t want to hear ‘there is no Santa’. I have heard them a couple of times since then talking about Santa and every now and again Jman will say something about there not being one and all I have to do is shoot him a look and he stops, all the while my son is still standing his ground and just downright ignoring Jman’s claims. I am amazed. The other day Jman came down to play and when his mom dropped him off my husband was on the roof cleaning the gutters. Jman looked up and asked what he was doing and Billy replied “I’m cleaning the roof and chimney for Santa”. Jman had one confused look on his face. His mom later told me that Jman is now contemplating if there is a Santa. Poor kid is so confused.
There is something about believing in Santa that still brings butterflies to my stomach just thinking about it. Yes I know there is no Santa but the thought is something amazing. Every year on Christmas Eve we check in on Santa’s whereabouts via NORAD Santa Tracker throughout the day. If you have not checked this out with your kids I highly suggest it. It tracks where Santa is and has been all around the world. They mark where he has been with gifts on a map which you can click on and watch a little 30 second clip about the area. There are also clips of the ‘trackers’ hard at work and it shows a group of people in a conference room with their laptops and headsets on trying to find the latest Santa whereabouts. The kids just love it and I will admit I get butterflies. I don’t know if its from watching the kids get so excited or if its the little kid that is still alive in me and the love of Santa that I have kept in my heart since I was a little girl. Confession: when the late night news comes on Christmas Eve and they do their little Where’s Santa story and when he is due to be in our area I get goosebumps and my eyes get a little watery. Playing Santa on Christmas is definitely a high point of being a parent!
I can only hope that once the time comes and my kids figure out that there is not a Santa Claus that they will keep him alive in their hearts for many years to come and always treasure the memory of when he was real.
A Wonderful Weekend.
Friday night my husband and I got an invite to go out with some friends. When crunch time came and it was time to decide so I could shower and get ready if we were going to go, I looked at my husband for an answer. He looked at me and said I know you want to go and I don’t but I don’t want you to be bummed if I say no. My answer, well if you don’t want to go you don’t want to go..and the pouting began. I am a good pouter, and I can be a bit of a weenie when I do pout. He called me out for being short with him and not stirring up too much conversation. I defended myself with “well I’m BORED”. It’s Friday night, we have no kids and I feel like we should be doing something. He looked at me and said..”I’m bored too and I don’t get the chance to just be bored, I like being bored every now and again”. I stopped in my tracks and thought about that. He was exactly right. He doesn’t get to be bored very often, he doesn’t get to just stay in his pj’s all day. He always has something to do whether it be work on something around the house, cave to the begging “will you play a game with me” from the kids, his darn phone ringing with work constantly, there is always something. I immediately stopped my pouting and enjoyed the boredom with him. He was happy that he didn’t get dressed, his phone wasn’t ringing, the kids weren’t here needing him, he didn’t have to do something. I felt bad that I reacted in such a childish selfish way with my pouting so I apologized and enjoyed the rest of the evening with him. Our highlight of Friday night was a trip to Taco Bell’s drivethu in our pj’s, a marathon of Pinks All Out and we ended the night with a battle on the Xbox Kinect. It ended up being a great boring night and for him it was just what the doctor ordered and exactly what he needed. I wouldn’t have wanted anything else.
The rest of the weekend was nice, the kids were home, we put up the Christmas Tree and decorated the house. The greatest time was putting the ornaments on the tree with the kids. I am so ridiculously anal with my tree and I used to find myself rearranging ornaments after the kids put them on or telling them where to put them so it was all even and nice. I am becoming better with that. Even though it took me forever to get to the ornament hanging due to trying to do the tree different this year, getting into a fight with the ribbon (at one point it looked like the ribbon monster threw up in my living room, there were about 5 different kinds of ribbon everywhere) putting it on and taking it off 4 different times and not having any creativity there for a bit it was finally time. I have to give it to my kids, they were so patient with me and my tree trials this year. They waited patiently for their time. I am still anal with a few ornaments that are very special to me and those have specific places on the tree but beside those it was anything goes for the kids. My daughter sang christmas carols while she hung her ornaments, which was the cutest thing ever, and my son (who has a little bit of myself in him) wanted to show me every ornament he hung to make sure it was in the right place. I would just look at him and tell him it was perfect, if he wanted it there then so did I. It is a beautiful tree and I am proud of it and so are the kiddos. It’s perfect.
Don't mind the bottom..the dog has already gotten into it..dumb dog!
A Family Gathering.
I was reminded yesterday how wonderful it is to have family close to spend these precious holidays with. As the kids played and the 3 of us girls were in the kitchen and the guys were in the barn cooking the turkey I stopped and took it all in for a moment. What a wonderful day. I enjoyed being in the kitchen cooking with my step mom more than anything else yesterday. We cracked open our wine and cooked away. We had great conversations, laughed much, made many messes and just enjoyed the time together. We had Christmas music playing in the background as we cooked and Tennessee Christmas came on the radio. I stopped and looked at Susie (stepmom) and said “This year you get to have a Tennessee Christmas”. That brought some tears as she listened to the words of the beautiful song and said “yes I am and I couldn’t be happier”. Love her! As we all came together at the table for the first time in many many years for our Thanksgiving dinner we went around the table and said what we are thankful for. My daughter (who is 5) led the way and instantly brought tears to the whole table. She said without being coached mind you “I am thankful for Pa-pa and my family”. I am pretty sure with that comment that she can get anything she wants from her Pa-pa now. She said it with such sincerity in her voice and the cutest genuine smile on her face you could tell it came straight from her heart. My son was thankful for the ham and the candy crust, as he calls it, that is on the ham. Way to be truthful kiddo! I love that kid. The rest of us had our turn and when it came to my stepmom and dad they couldn’t hold back their emotion which made the rest of us a little choked up. They were so thankful for all of us to be together again, as a family on this holiday. Like I said before it has been over 10 years since we have all spent Thanksgiving together and it was wonderful. I am so thankful to have them close to us again. It was a wonderful wonderful day.
Growing up we always went to my grandmother’s house on Thanksgiving and it was my grandma and my 3 aunts in the kitchen cooking away. The kids never really helped. Then I went straight to cooking my own Thanksgiving dinner when we moved away so the only person I ever had in the kitchen with me was my sister and on occasion my sister in law when they would come visit. So yesterday was amazing for me. To be in the kitchen with my sister and Susie and contribute to the dinner with my own recipes that have became tradition with my small family over the years was truly touching for me. I felt like such a big girl haha! It was very heart warming for me and I look forward to many more holidays in the kitchen with them in the years to come.
After dinner we all sat down stuffed and lazy around the living room and played a game as a family. It was fantastic. It has been, again, many years since this has happened. Just sitting here thinking about it puts such a smile on my face and warms my heart. We laughed, we played and we were..a family.
I am happy.
