Thanksgiving Week

It has been a week since I last wrote, and a lot has happened. Thanksgiving was so wonderful, just as I had anticipated it being! Wed. was a really fun day. I spent my time preparing some of my fav. Thanksgiving dishes, getting the house in order for my sister Ellen and her family who would be there that night, and listening to Bebo Norman. I probably listened to that cd 5 times over and it never got old..it just put me in a great mood. Ellen, Mike, Emily and Arianna arrived around nine that night, but we only stayed up for a short while because everyone was already so tired. We also knew that Thursday would be a pretty long day.

Just giving some loves before heading to bed

Told you I was tired..i'm a hot mess, but she little Ariana is adorable!:)

Thursday started out great..we were all up and ready for 8am mass. I don’t think I have always gone to church on Thanksgiving morning, but I really loved it and Cole and I have decided it will be one of our many Thanksgiving traditions! We made a quick stop at the grocery store (partly for groceries and partly for starbucks!), and then headed home to start cooking and start looking at all the Black Friday ads. Ellen had agreed to make my mom’s famous cheese bread, while I made the usual green bean casserole, California veggie dish, and delicious jello desserts! Aunt Marlene, my dad’s sister, had asked us all to join her and Uncle Ralph for Thanksgiving, so we really didn’t have a stressful day of cooking. It was relaxing and fun! We headed over to their house around 2 and had the most amazing Thanksgiving dinner. It was so nice of them to include us! For anyone who doesn’t know, my Aunt Marlene is the best cook in the world, and she lived up to every expectation for Thanksgiving dinner! We don’t get to see them nearly enough so it was really wonderful…plus, I don’t think Cole had ever been to their house before! We all ate WAY too much, and I was sad that I got so full so soon! All in all it was a big success. We went home just in time for the Broncos game and had fun resting, eating, watching the game, looking through more ads, and eventually playing games. I wasn’t the most fun to play games with because I was just so tired! I did make it through a few rounds of Catch Phrase…(Ellen and I dominated) and that was fun…Mike is always one of the funniest people to play games with!
(we are horrible and didn't take ANY pictures on Thanksgiving...such a regret!)

I enjoyed looking at all the Black Friday ads, but I really hadn’t thought we would actually get up early to go. If anything, I was expecting a small outing around 9 or 10 am. To my surprise, Cole was interested in a tv at one of the stores, so at like 11 on Thursday night he mentions how he will probably just get up at 5 and go see if it is available. What?  Getting up early to shop? This did not sound like my husband! The alarm went off way too soon, and even though I was SO tired, I just didn’t like the idea of Cole going by himself. And, this way I could do the crazy early shopping with my husband and he would think it was his idea! When we got to Ultimate Electric it had a huge line, and considering we didn’t really even bring coats, waiting in line wasn’t much of an option. I offered going to Target while we waited..:) It was a great idea. After buying some gifts we went back to Ultimate which STILL had a line…so I suggested we make a quick stop at Wal-mart :) After some more great deals (especially on the picture frames I had wanted) we drove back to Ultimate. And, finally, a VERY short line. We waited for 5 minutes, got into the store, and purchased the tv that happened to still be available! I was bummed Ellen wasn’t able to join us..she hadn’t known I was going to get up early and go with Cole (trust me, I didn’t know either), and I texted and called her but she was sleeping soundly! It wasn’t the morning I had planned on, but I am thankful for how it turned out. Cole and I have never done Black Friday shopping together, and this is probably the last year it will be that easy since little Tavian isn't here yet!

We got home around 8 in the morning and Ellen and Mike were just getting up with the kiddos. They decided they wanted to do some shopping, and Cole and I decided we were going to need a nap! We went our separate ways and then met up at 12 for the CSU/WYO football game. It was a lot of fun…even though Wyoming won. We couldn’t believe it ended up being such a close game, but that made it all the more fun! Emily was especially humorous during the game as she continued to yell, “GO WYO!” and “CAN THE RAMS”. (Yes, her father influenced this behavior!) I guess she must have been their good luck charm. We went to Old Navy after the game and I got the cutest little overalls for Tavian. We went home exhausted and while everyone else stayed up playing games, I was in bed by 9. Cole crawled into bed at 1 after a very long game of Risk with Ellen and Mike. Cole loves that game and it isn’t very often he gets to play it!

Just some pics from the game!

Yup, she puked in his hat! Yum!

Some other random photos from the week

Emmy playing with my hair

My little snuggle buddy (this is when she kept kissing my

tummy and talking to Tavian!)

I just LOVE this little lady!

I love her too!

Being silly!

Saturday was uneventful for the most part. Best Buy was still having good deals on camcorders and it has been really important for me to get one before the baby gets here. Mike found a great deal on a GPS so he wanted to get that. We headed to Best Buy and my dad, who had just gotten home from London decided to meet up with us. From there we went home to play more games!! Ellen, my dad, and Mike all went out for dinner while Cole and I got ready to head over to Sydnie and Brads for their Wine Party. We went for the first time last year and I had been looking forward to it for weeks! For the first time in a long time I didn’t feel out of place being pregnant! Everyone was pregnant!!! As always Syd had everything prepared to perfection with the entire house beautifully decorated. It was so much fun catching up with friends that we don’t see as often.

Pics from the Wine Party

Preggers together!!!!!

We ended the weekend with heading to Longmont early Sunday morning to meet up with Cole’s family for mass and breakfast. As always it was wonderful getting to spend time with them! We had breakfast with Cole’s mom, stepdad, and sister. We spent a little more time with them back at his mom’s house, but we couldn’t stay too long because we had to get back home because our tv was being delivered. We had a nice treat with Cole’s brother, his wife, and their baby Bella stopping by our house for a quick hello.  Plus they got to see our new tv!

We ended the night relaxing with a Netflix movie (Curious Case of Benjamin Button..which really was curious!) that we watched on our new tv. Now we just have a lot of cleaning and organizing to do !!

Sorry this was long, but it was a fun, activity packed weekend and I was trying not to miss anything. Hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving like we did!

Oh, and as for being thankful, I am so so thankful! This year I concentrated on being just as thankful for the rough times as I am the good times. For even the most difficult parts of life are necessary for our sanctification and for our growth towards Christ. There has been a lot of pain in my life, but if necessary for my relationship with Christ to grow, then I should be nothing but humbly grateful!