Happy Thanksiving! and now let's get on to Christmas

Does anyone else feel like Thanksgiving isn't even a real holiday anymore even though it is a holiday EVERYONE in the United States should celebrate? I can't believe how many stores were open on Thanksgiving and I don't know, the week just flew by. Did anyone have a chance to relish in the joy of being thankful for all that we've been given? Now we're already into December and advent and before I know it Christmas will be over too. I'd love to move Christmas to January (though I'm sure the Pope or Merchandisers would have a problem with it). I just think I might enjoy the coldness of January and February more if I had Christmas in the middle of it to make life warm. 

I took the kids out of school Monday and Tuesday so that we could have a long week in Colorado (especially since we won't be back to CO until after the kids' new cousin joins the family in late January). We got to enjoy decorating cookies.

 Love that we do stuff like this at Yaya's...look at that mess!

 

 

 

Lola's favorite part was adding the sprinkles. The cookies were well covered.

and then we visited the Colorado History Museum before the stomach bug hit Colorado family. The Colorado History Museum had a simulation of the dust bowl that scared the girls but Lola was also scared to remove pretend eggs from pretend chickens in the barn/town replica.

Once everyone got sick, we just stayed away. I took the kids to the natural history museum to see a whale exhibit and we went bowling. I DID NOT want the stomach bug again (plus the noise level of just the six of us sounds like 40).

I was nervous the bowling ball would fall on Millie's head but she slept through my worrying. 

Grayson was quite the helper...setting up the stand for Lola and telling her when to push it off.

So including the stomach bug, the wine shop's computer system crashed (including the back-up) so it was actually quite stressful for Bompa and Uncle Brady. Uncle Brady ended up not flying to California with his family (off year for them due to impending Dodds #3 arrival) and then with the stomach bug, I actually went in to help at the shop. (I will point out that my day at the shop was very enjoyable...much less stressful than dealing with my 4 but don't tell Uncle Brady). Yaya watched my kiddos for me since Matt was working and then she didn't get all the pre-planned Thanksgiving stuff done. It was a crazy Wednesday but we had a wonderful Thanksgiving with ProYaya, Uncle Steve and Aunt Sharon. There was a competitive game of Monopoly, good moods and everyone was healthy....couldn't have asked for anything better (well except for Amy and the girls and the rest of the Colorado family to be there). SOOO much to just relish in the wonder of thankfulness for!

But if that was our high, Friday was our low. Bompa and Brady were back at the shop trying to recover any bit of data they could find and poor ProYaya was soooo sick. It was just awful. We sent her to the hospital in Meeker (where she wanted to be) thinking she might not make it through the night. Yiayia left to join her and we spent most the remaining weekend time worrying (not that worrying can change anything). I don't know why bad things happen. Surely we appreciate the good times more when we have them. We are certainly thankful that ProYaya recovered and that we had such a good time Thursday. Our next journey to Colorado won't be until after Dodds 3 make his/her appearance. We are anxious to see him/her! So Happy Thanksgiving and now let's get on to Christmas!