Twas the Saturday After Thanksgiving...

... and I am still full.

One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving are the days and days of leftovers. I can eat stuffing and mashed potatoes every day of the week. I love food. I love Thanksgiving food. I just love sides so much and Thanksgiving is all about the sides.

It's Saturday morning and I'm sitting at the breakfast table in Grant's parents' house. We've had such a nice, relaxing few days here. I remember coming here when Grant and I were dating. The first time I came here was about seven years ago. I slept in a different bedroom, would say goodnight to Grant in the hallway before bed, and would get tours of New Orleans during the day. Now that we've been married almost 5 years (mercy!) this house feels very much like home. Thankfully, I now get to share a room with that handsome man, and take naps during the day at my leisure. The boys still go fish all day and the girls still chat and visit all day, but now there's 3 babies added to the mix!

When I met Grant, his family was just adults. Mom, Dad, Chase, Ronda, and Grant. And then I joined and we had a great time, just the six of us. But then the real fun started :)

Evan, Emmy and Olivia have turned this family upside down, but in the best possible way. I love their sweet faces, their big hugs, their loud exclamations when they see something exciting, and even when they start to crash. I love Olivia's curls. I love Emmy's big eyes and her ever-present "Pincess Cown" (princess crown). I love Evan's laugh and how he always wants his Uncle Gant.

I love that this whole house is child-proofed and there's toys everywhere. I love that a lot of the time someone has to help me get into our bedroom since the child-safety door knob is in place.

The thing is, sharing holidays is one of the trickier things about being married. You have to compromise, adjust, and embrace your spouse's way of doing things. Yes, I still miss my mom's mashed potatoes. On the years we spend Christmas here in New Orleans, there will always be a moment where I'll miss my parents living room and the noises there. Over time though, I have found that I no longer feel like this is "Grant's family." It's OUR family. It's MY family.

 

Clearly I'm Falling Apart Here

Apparently this month is not turning out to be very bloggy.

Bloggy (def.) adj. - full of blogs.


I'm just not finding time to blog, nor the material to blog about.

At some point, I'll drum up the energy to do a recap of this weekend. Lindsee and I went to San Antonio with our moms for our friend Amy's beautiful wedding. It was an awesome girl weekend and Lindsee took some pictures and I'll share them at a later date.

Meanwhile, the clothing situation in our home is out of control. The drawers. The closet. The laundry room. Clothes exploding everywhere. I'm not so sure where they all came from. The longer it goes, the more daunting it gets. My goal is to conquer it before bed tonight but I'm not so sure that is going to happen.

We're getting pretty excited about Thanksgiving around here. I get so gosh darn excited about the food. It's full of sides and I love sides. Mashed potatoes. Stuffing. Gravy. Macaroni and Cheese. Bread. MASHED. POTATOES. (I'm sorry I just had to mention them twice)

Plus, we get to hold lots of nieces and nephews. We love them :)

And this concludes the most boring blog you've ever read in all of your blog-reading life.

Reasons Why I've Been Behind on the Blog

Today is November 14th and it is only my second post of the entire month. I'm behind on blogging.

Ya know why? BECAUSE I AM BEHIND ON EVERYTHING.

You know how when I started working from home I started talking about how I'm on top of everything and I have no problems and my life is full of rainbows and unicorns?

Well, throw a major Christmas production that's less than a month away into the mix and you've got a recipe for exhaustion.

Ah, yes. My church has a fantastic, exciting, over-the-top, six performances of Christmas awesomeness every year and we are in full swing at the moment. Meetings, meetings, meetings, decorating, meetings, rehearsal, meetings, rehearsal, decorating, meetings, rehearsals. And meetings.

There's been a fully washed and dried load of clothing in the dryer for over a week now. While it would make sense to take the clothes out and fold them and put them away, I just keep going and getting out the specific clothing item that I need.

Anyways, I'll give you some highlights of the last few weeks:

Grant was traveling for a looong time and he's back for good now and that makes me happy.

I sang in a wedding last weekend. It was fun. I didn't have a microphone and I had no idea what to do with my hands.

Last night I made breaded chicken fingers and fettucine alfredo for dinner. I mostly ate the fettucine. Because it is delicious.

I've started wearing leggings. I'm pretty slow on jumping on the latest fashion trends.

We went to a Thanksgiving potluck on Saturday night. It was my job to bring mashed potatoes. Bringing mashed potatoes to a potluck is a pretty big job. Well, I started making my mashed potatoes around 2:30pm and around 3:30pm we had what I like to call "THE GREAT MASHED POTATO INCIDENT OF 2011" and around 4:00pm I finished crying and Grant finished cleaning up the mashed potatoes out of the stove and gas line and around 5:00pm I picked up several quarts of Mashed Potatoes from Cracker Barrel.

I love Thanksgiving food.

I'm gonna catch up on some work, but I feel much better now that I no longer have the "you haven't blogged in a sweet forever" feeling hanging over my head. :)

 

Help Your Favorite Non-Profit!

Okay people. I usually don't do plugs like this but I think this one is actually kinda awesome.

So, we all know a church or a charity group or a ministry or some other non-profit organization that is running low on the money. And honestly, they really really really need a new website cause the other one was built by someone's 14 year old son but they just can't afford to get a good, custom website.

Well, you can nominate them to get a custom, awesome website FOR. FREE.

My friends at Immerseme (they are an awesome web design and branding company) are doing a website giveaway for a non-profit organization. (Seriously I think I'm going to nominate three of them if that is allowed.) (I just checked, it is).

Seriously, you should go there and nominate your church or your charity group or whatever. Spread the love, people. Spread the love!

The rules, FAQ and nomination form are here: CLICK HERE.

Good luck to you and your favorite non-profit! Happy nominating!