Sunday, November 27, 2011

Week in Review: Giving Thanks

This was a wonderful FULL week. We were busy, busy (as I'm sure most people were this week), but we were doing fun things and spending lots of time together as a family.

Sunday: We debated on whether or not we should go to church since Aubrey had the stomach bug on Friday. Since it had been 48 hours since she had had any symptoms, we decided it would be ok. We all got ready and went. We attempted to take some pictures before church, and the kids weren't really feeling it.

We had communion that day, and it was a good service. We went to Sunday School after church, and then we came home to eat chicken spaghetti for lunch. We took naps after we ate and went back to church that night. We had a prayer service, and we prayed for the Operation Christmas Child boxes we were sending. After church, we had cake, but we didn't stay long because the kids hadn't had dinner yet. We stopped at Newks and ate on the way home. We put the kids to bed when we got home, and I then blogged while I watched TV.

Monday: I was so happy because David didn't have karate that night, which meant he would be home at 4:30. That made the day MUCH nicer :) The kids and I had a low-key day. I decided that we weren't going to the grocery store like we usually do. That is just a recipe for a not so great start to the week. We hung out at home, and I got some things done around the house. We ate lunch at home, and then the kids napped. Well, Jude napped. Aubrey played in her room. That afternoon, we hung out at home some more until David got home. I wanted to get out of the house for a little while, so we all made a Target run. David took the kids in Pet's Mart to see the animals while I went in Target :) On the way home, I ran in Subway and got a veggie sub. When we got home, David and I fixed the kids some food, and then we all ate various leftovers, etc. After dinner, we watched Dancing with the Stars and the kids played until bedtime.
My sweet babies. It's rare that they will both sit in my lap, so I was loving this!

Once we got them to bed, I finished watching Dancing, and then I played around on the internet until bed.

Tuesday: We got up and started getting ready, because we were meeting SD and her kids for lunch at Beagle Bagel. We had some trouble getting out of the door on time because Jude got into some Crystal Lite powder right as we were about to leave and made a huge mess. I cleaned him up and left the mess on the floor for later. We made it on time, and we had a really fun lunch! Aubrey was WILD, and she kind of made Ann Peyton more hyper than she usually is too ;) They had fun playing with AP's granola. AKA throwing it on the floor. Ha! We cleaned up our mess and went outside to finish our conversation. I don't think anyone was sad to see us go ;) It worked out so well that we were at lunch at that time, because apparently there had been tornado warnings and we didn't even know it. In this case, ignorance was bliss :) When we got home, I put the kids to bed and got on the internet and looked up some recipes. David got home a little early that afternoon, and I was able to go to the grocery store without the kids. I got everything we would need for Thanksgiving, so I was there a while. When I got home, I unloaded all the groceries and started dinner. We had chicken enchiladas for dinner, and they were good. Jude got really fussy, and we had our usual mealtime stress, though. After we ate, I watched the Dancing with the Stars finale, and David put both kids to bed that night so that I could watch. So sweet! After it went off, I honestly can't even remember what we did until bedtime. Ha!

Wednesday: This was my birthday, and David had the day off! So it was a good day :) That morning, David gave me my present: an external flash for our camera. I was so surprised! :)
Playing around with it. At this point, I didn't know how to adjust the brightness, so these pictures are BRIGHT ;) The subject is still cute though!

The kids and I were planning to meet my mom and the little girl she keeps for lunch at Chick Fil A. I got ready really quickly (I had slept in), and we left. David stayed home to do some yard work since we were having company the next day. We had a fun lunch at CFA. Aubrey LOVES playing in the "big kids' room" as she calls the play area. We stayed until naptime, and then we came back home. When the kids went down for their naps, I ran to a few stores to try to find something to wear in our Christmas card pictures. Shopping for maternity clothes is just frustrating! When I got home, I made a pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving diner the next day.
Not nearly as pretty as the one on the cover of Southern Living, but it tasted good ;)

I then changed clothes and got ready, because David and I had a date that night! My mom was coming over to play with the kids, and they were excited about that :) When she got here, we got them situated with dinner, and then we left. We couldn't decide where we wanted to go, but we finally ended up at Sombra. We wanted to try somewhere new, and it was really good! It was so fun being out just the two of us. We both left stuffed. We went to Barnes and Noble for hot chocolate after dinner, and we looked at an Awkward Family Photos with Pets book. Haha! We stopped at Wal-Mart on the way home. Both kids were asleep when we got home. We talked to my mom for a little while, and then she went home. David and I did some cleaning that night before we went to bed.

Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving! We were having my family, my grandparents, and David's parents over for Thanksgiving, so we got up and did a few things around the house like last minute straightening and vacuuming. We were actually doing GREAT on time and had a very relaxed, pleasant morning. Then all heck broke loose ;) No, it wasn't that bad, but a lot of things needed to happen at once right before everyone got here, and it did get a little stressful. I was trying to make a green bean casserole, and Jude needed lunch and a nap, and David was trying to take a shower and get dressed, and Aubrey had just gotten out of the tub and needed clothes... not to mention I had no makeup on at this point. Whew! I had to take some deep breaths and remind myself that it was just family coming over. It did all get done somehow, and our families arrives and we had a wonderful day. My dad did the turkey and the dressing, and everyone else brought stuff too, so it wasn't too much work for any one person. Perfect way to do Thanksgiving in my opinion! :) We ate a little after 1:00, and everything was SO GOOD! After we had all stuffed ourselves, we just sat around visiting and watching football/looking at sale papers/talking. It was nice and relaxing :) After a good LONG nap, Jude woke up, and David and the kids and I changed clothes and went outside to attempt some pictures for our Christmas cards. We had really waited too late in the day, though, and the lighting wasn't great. Being the clueless photographers that we are, we didn't know exactly what setting to put the camera on, and our pictures ended up being blurry when we put them on the computer :( That meant we had to try again another day. David's family and my grandparents left after the picture attempt, and my family stayed a little longer. I decided to start putting up some of our Christmas decorations, so David got everything out of the attic. Aubrey got SO excited -- it was super cute! She told my mom that she was helping me "make Christmas." Haha! My parents left when we got all the mess out ;) I got the tree in the dining room up, and then it was getting close to the kids' bedtime, so I quit decorating so we could get them to bed. After the were asleep, I got on the internet and took it easy the rest of the night. It was a wonderful day with family!

Friday: I got up (not too early) and got ready to go Black Friday shopping with my mom and grandmother. It's something we've done for as long as I can remember, and it's just a fun tradition. We don't get really into it, and there's never anything that we HAVE to have, but we just go for fun. Obviously I'm not too hardcore, because it was close to 10 before I left my house to go meet them. David stayed home with the kids, and I was able to shop by myself. We had fun looking around, and I got a few things on sale, but nothing big. I got a couple of small things for Aubrey for Christmas. We are NOT going overboard for Christmas. Our kids have more than they need already. My mom, grandmother, and I met some friends for lunch at 5 Guys, and that was fun. It was nice to take a break from the shopping and sit for a while :) After lunch, we shopped some more! By the time we finished and I headed home, it was about 4:30. David said they had a good day, but I think it was long. Haha! That evening, we went to Cheddar's for dinner. Jude had a random meltdown at the end, and I had to walk outside with him. It was weird. When we got home, the kids played for a little while before bed. Once they were in bed, I watched Sweet Home Alabama (the TV show) and surfed the internet a little bit. It had been a long day, so we went to bed pretty early.

Saturday: This was a fun day, but for some reason I got SO stressed out. It really had nothing to do with the circumstances and everything to do with me. I'm going to blame it on hormones ;) We had a birthday party for one of Aubrey's little friends to go to that morning at 9, and we were all planning to go. I ended up not getting up early enough apparently. I got up at 7:30, and we ended up being SO rushed, and I got crazy stressed. I do hate feeling rushed, but it wasn't worth getting that stressed over. Telling yourself that doesn't really help in the situation, though ;) It was time for us to be in the car on the way, and I still had wet hair and no makeup on. I told David to just go on with Aubrey and that I would stay home with Jude. I didn't want to make us ridiculously late. But then Aubrey said, "Mommy, don't you want to go to the party with me and Daddy?" Of course I could NOT say no to that, so I took some deep breaths and put my makeup on in the car. Ha! I ended up being really glad I went, because it was fun and both kids LOVED it. It was at The Children's Museum, and that was our first time to go. We'll definitely be going back, though, because Aubrey and Jude had a blast. I would love to take them during the week, but they went opposite directions, so I don't think I could take both of them by myself. After the party, we went to Primos for brunch. That was so fun, and I loved just spending a Saturday doing fun stuff together as a family. However, things got stressful again after that ;) My mom was going to try to take our picture again, and it was really overcast and threatening to rain. We were going to do the pictures after naptime, but we decided we better do them before to beat the rain. Well, that put us doing them right when Jude usually goes down for his nap, and he wasn't happy about pictures. We took a bunch (this time I just decided to let the camera flash because I was desperate at that point) and when I got them on the computer, they were blurry again! What the heck?! I think it's because we were using our zoom lense, and the flash wasn't reaching far enough? It was so dark and overcast. I knew we had to get a picture THAT DAY or we would have to wait at least another week to try again. We we pulled out our big new external flash and went back out. I went from not waning a flash at all to using a huge flash. Haha! Desperate times call for desperate measures ;) Oh, and it had started to drizzle at this point. Jude was melting down, and it was looking hopeless until my grandmother started bouncing and rolling a ball, and we got a smile! I didn't even care at that point about a perfect picture -- I just wanted something useable. I think it turned out pretty good. That big flash really does make a BIG difference in my opinion. It look so much more natural than the flash in the camera. I'll post some of our outtakes later in the week for fun. Ha! We came inside and put Jude to bed, and then I picked out our card. I just felt so much pressure to get it done RIGHT THAT MINUTE. I don't even know why I was so stressed about it. I finally picked one and got our picture all on there, and I was happy with it. I went to save it before I placed my order, and the whole thing got lost. I literally about cried. I just had to walk away. David came to the rescue and redid it for me. He saved my sanity. Haha! After that whole fiasco, we set up the Christmas tree in the living room, and I decorated it while David watched the Iron Bowl and both kids napped. That put me in a better state :) When the kids woke up, we hung out at home (and tried to keep Jude away from the tree).She LOVES to color :)
We then went to dinner at Mellow Mushroom. That was fun and a nice end to a stressful day. We went to Kroger after dinner, and I got enough stuff to last us a week (I'm bad about going to the grocery store two or three times a week), so I won't have to go back with the kids by myself -- yay! It was pouring down rain, so getting everything and everybody into the car was tricky, but we finally made it home :) We put the kids to bed and I put a few more Christmas things out, and then we went to bed fairly early.

Now, it's back to the usual grind, and I'm kind of sad about it. I loved having David home a lot this week, and we had such a fun holiday week. Thankfully I happen to love my "usual grind" so I'll get over sadness that Thanksgiving week is over quickly :)

1 comment:

Ashley said...

I could relate to so many things in this post!! I've gotten stressed about stupid stuff too lately. Also, it's been hard getting used to two kids and managing the different wants/needs/moods. UGH.

I need a girls weekend....