It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

So it's getting to be the crazy time of year and between holiday hoopla and school, I'm really spent from now until Christmas and hoping I survive.

Our Thanksgiving trip to Dallas went well and I ended up driving a 2nd vehicle home with us. We did find a new car for me. We ended up buying a few years older than what we were aiming to - I got a 2004 rather than a 2006. However, I got all the features I wanted but couldn't afford in a newer model. My Toyota Sienna is an XLE model and has leather, a sunroof, a built in DVD player that opens down from the ceiling of the van. Eriks doesn't know it's there yet and he won't for awhile because if he did, he'd insist on watching every time we got into the car and the DVD is only for long trips! I also have power sliding doors. I just have to push a button and can get each of the side doors to slide open which is great because Eriks usually runs ahead of me to the car anyhow and can get himself inside. What is an extra perk is that not only do the 2 side doors slide, but the hatch also opens and closes at the push of a button. It was great yesterday while I was running errands like a mad woman while Eriks was at school. I walked out of Target and pushed the button and the hatch opened and when I got to the car all I had to do was load everything. As I was putting the cart away in the designated cart return area, I pushed the button and the hatch went down. It's so cool.

So getting back to Thanksgiving. My SIL doesn't cook. It's not something my MIL ever really taught her kids to do. Partly because according to Lane, a lot of what they ate as kids were casseroles or one dish kind of meals. Totally opposite my mom who came from a large immigrant family where everything was made from scratch and you not only had meat, you had potatoes, veggies, bread, etc. It was a spread at dinner. So my SIL and her husband if they cook make really easy meals that can be cooked quickly and are simple, but they eat out a lot. So I made the majority of Thanksgiving dinner with the exception of the Turducken (Turkey stuffed with duck, stuffed with chicken) and the garlic mashed potatoes which was all made by my BIL. It turned out really good and I was a little apprehensive of the Turducken but it was really tasty.

On Saturday Lane's brother Marc, and his family drove up from San Antonio where they spent Thanksgiving with my In-Laws and we ended up going to the Galleria in Dallas. I forgot to mention that I'll never listen to the Weather Channel again. They had predicted highs in the mid to upper 50's for the weekend. Well it was in the low 40's and raining all weekend starting on Thanksgiving day all the way through our drive back to Arkansas on Sunday. We came with medium weight jackets and totally ill-prepared for the weather.

Anyhow back to the Galleria. It was busy and we did some window shopping on our way to the indoor play area for the kids to run amok and that they did. Eriks fell asleep on the way to the mall and we put him in the stroller while we were walking around. We had to wake him up to play with his cousins. This is a photo of all the siblings and kids in front of the giant Christmas tree at the mall. Lane's brother is the one on my right holding the cutie in the pink coat and his wife is the one standing next to him. Lane's sister is the Korean gal standing next to Marc's wife and her husband is standing behind her in the TCU visor (his alma mater and he takes any and every chance he can get to wear TCU gear). You can hardly see Eriks in his stroller sleeping.



This is when all the kids were finally running like mad in the play area at the mall. It was crazy busy. What bothered me most is that kids who were too old and too big to be in that play area were there and one of them almost knocked my 2 yr old niece off the top of climbing thing chasing another boy around. The mall really needed a monitor there because there was the potential of innocent little kids getting hurt by big kids that were not supposed to be playing in there. So glad their parents give a crap about them and kept them from going in there even though the rules and restrictions are posted. Time to get off my soapbox on that one.

This photo was taken at dinner with 3 of the 4 kids. My SIL adores her nieces and nephew on both sides. Eriks is the only nephew Lane's sister has. Both of her husband Corey's siblings have a girl apiece. And Lane's brother has 3 girls. And then we we adopt again, it'll be another girl. Sometimes I feel bad for him being the only boy. But I have a cousin who has a son who is 3 weeks younger than Eriks and they play well together when we're up in Indy visiting. It'll be good for them once we move back to Indy and they can spend more time together.

So that was my Thanksgiving weekend in a nutshell. OK, short book actually.

This weekend is going to be crazy busy. Tomorrow we need to go buy an XM receiver for my new vehicle. We have it in the other 2 cars and we'll disconnect the service in the Jetta but local radio around here sucks and I've been listening to the iPod. Lane needs to put up the outside lights so that I can see if I have to go buy more lights. Lane refused to put up the icicle lights because they're a pain in the a$$. And honestly, we are both a little burned out on them since we've been putting them up for 10 yrs! So we're going for big multi-colored bulbs. We've also got the first of 2 holiday parties tomorrow night. The 2nd one is next weekend.

Sorry I've been MIA lately. I've just got a lot on my plate right now and not a lot of time to do everything that I'd like to do. I'll try and be better but no promises!