Home for the holidays

We packed a lot into a few days, evidenced by how much I was dragging on Saturday night.  It was a wonderful time though.

On Thanksgiving we prepared our feast and sat at a pretty table.

the little rosemary plant in our kitchen window is the gift that keeps on giving

Adam asked me to say the prayer and I said no.  He asked, "Because you'll cry?"

I said, "Yes."

So he said the prayer and I cried anyway.

In an extreme departure from the other women in my family, we did not have a ton of leftovers.  All the kids said that Thanksgiving leftovers are overrated, so I guess we all stood in the correct line in heaven.

In the late afternoon, we went to a movie. (King Richard, we all loved it!)

We came home for pie, which is always a good thing to come home for.

Friday, after doing my part for the economy on Amazon, we decorated for Christmas.  Those boys make quick work of carrying boxes. 

The highlight of decorating is opening the box of Christmas bears.  Anna sat in a chair and was bombarded with both stories about the bears and actual bears.

Each bear is loved and stories are told about them all.  It is the weirdest scrapbook in the world, but it's ours.

They put them in chronological order, Braeden at the helm

Adam and Mark set up the new big tree that is on wheels and lives in Adam's office closet.  It is slick and easy and when they were done, they commented that no one was even mad after the task.  Winning.  Adam and Braeden set up the other tree and no one got mad there either.  We're all growing up so nicely.

Mark has long been my sidekick decorator and he was up on a ladder and arranging things to my specifications and he said, "I think we need a third thing up here," and I couldn't have been more proud.  Emma and Anna helped with the arranging as well and we soon had the house looking festive.  We realized next year at this time, we will have a little one crawling around.  Hurray and also, that will change the decorating situation around here.

We watched the Great British Baking Show finale which had been highly anticipated by all of us (except Mark, he hasn't been watching, plus he said since he can't eat gluten, it's not fun to watch).  Mark hung out with his friends instead.

After, we had more pie and then watched A Mighty Wind.  Anna had never seen it and we all wanted her to watch.

Actually, I told her it wasn't a want, it was a need.

She complied like the sweet girl she is.

Saturday was another pack-a-lot-in sort of day.  I made cookies for pikkujoulu.  They were gluten free and also sort of unrecognizable as their former gluten selves.  Let's just say Paul would not have been handing out a handshake.  I still have lots of Christmases to figure out how to make them though.

We went to lunch and then to BYU for nostalgia for our BYU alumni kids.  Mark walked around in his Utah State sweatshirt which he was wearing coincidentally.  I told him I loved him anyway and I would love him even more if he would drop out of college and stay in my basement forever.

He said no.

When we got home, I folded mountains of laundry (dishes and laundry don't take vacations) and we sat around the fire pit briefly because it works now and it was a sputtering mess when Braeden and Anna were last here.  We brought in the couch cushions (the boys and Adam had moved all the deck furniture earlier in the day. And we decorated the big tree.  

Adam made clam chowder while we did that, because we were also going to have pikkujoulu.

The marathon continued.

We had a lovely meal, sans the bread bowls, but I think they weren't missed (plus I told Emma and Braeden that if anyone mentioned regret that we weren't having bread bowls, they wouldn't get Christmas presents).

The kids opened their new ornaments and Braeden and Anna opened a few presents and we sampled some treats (mostly gluten free, from Trader Joe's).   Everyone gamely ate the gluten free disasters I had made and told me they were delicious.

That's why they are all getting Christmas presents.