We  had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I hope you did as well.

On Monday, Tiffany and I took it rather easy in preparation for the business ahead of us. On Tuesday  Lauren joined us as we ran errands and did a little last minute Christmas shopping, in order to reach my finished by Thanksgiving goal. I am not completely done with everyone but nearly done. I have a few stocking stuffers to buy yet and one small gift for my mother.

Wednesday was the hugely busy day! I made out a schedule whereby we took advantage of cooking time to accomplish other tasks that needed to be done as well. We got our chores done before beginning to bake and put up the tree. We finally got started around 10am. As I started working on the baking, Tiffany got her Christmas tree up in her room and then began helping me. I got the pies, cake, and bars made while Tiffany made way for the Christmas tree and started putting it up. I joined her for branch fluffing and light stringing. Then she started working on the pumpkin donuts and chocolate fruit cake (which is something new we are looking forward to trying in a few weeks).

Then we had to cook dinner. I am still not sure why I thought it was a good idea to have homemade egg rolls on baking day! I looked for something easy to make and found it in Korean “Beef” but the family likes it with egg rolls, which are a little more involved to make – but still easy, especially with help. My sweet daughter-in-love likes my egg rolls so she was brave and tried them at a restaurant and decided that she didn’t like them out and that some things are just better left eaten at my house.

Sean was a sweetheart and stopped at Walmart on his way home from work to pick up a few things that I overlooked on Tuesday, namely whipped cream and eggs. I had nearly two dozen eggs but the fruit cake Tiffany made called for nine! We had one egg left to include in the egg rolls, which was ok since she had enough extra chicken to include. Actually, she put so much chicken in, I had a hard time finding the cabbage.

I intended to paint my nails on Monday or Tuesday but never got around to it. So Thursday morning I thought I might just throw a coat of some polish on. I had a new polish I wanted to try but wasn’t sure how fast it would dry and if it would coat well. So I did just my left thumb and figured I do the rest when we got to Mom and Dad’s because we are usually the first to arrive. Well, when we got there Brian and Lauren had already arrived, albeit I don’t think they’d been there very long but they were already there, all the same. Then before I could even sit down, Tracie and her family arrived and the chaos ensued. I love our family! We have so much fun together. We are very loud but fun!!!

At one point, I was even playing the Wii U with the four youngest girls . . . Nintendo Land’s Sweet Day event. They liked me playing with them because I really get into it and scream when I’m about to be caught.

We decorated Mom and Dad’s tree. This year, since it was a new tree and Mom had to see if it was acceptable, she already had it up AND it is pre-lit, so it took about an hour off of the time to decorate. Mom buys ornaments for each person as they join the family. These ornaments are place on the tree in groups. Here’s a pic of the unmarried grandkids putting theirs on this year.

We also took family pictures so Mom can make her Christmas cards. Mom got pictures of everyone as we all arrived. Dad took pictures at the table, like I shared earlier this week. And there are some, not so great pictures take of us working in the kitchen. Mom will forward me the family photo session pictures later because one year we were all taking pictures so that we all had copies and there were too many flashes going off and nobody knew where to look. It was CRAZY and the guys don’t like to do the photo sessions anyway, so that was just unbearable to ALL.

As the day progressed, I completely forgot about my nails, so here I sat, at 10pm and still only had one coat of polish on my left thumb! Maybe I’ll get them done before I leave to go shopping with Lauren and Tiffany this morning. We will see!

Have a great weekend! Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº