Happy Thanksgiving!

It's the night before Thanksgiving here and I'm trying to get my list together and plan out how/when to cook what tomorrow. Everyone is FINALLY healthy here or at least almost healthy... We ALL took turns with the stomach flu that AJ had. It was a rough couple days around our house! But I guess I could look at the bright side and say "hey I dropped a few pounds and got one heck of an ab workout!"
Because face it, that's the ONLY bright side of the stomach flu! I think the only thing worse than the stomach flu is seeing your 3 babies with the stomach flu. I never realized the stomach flu could break my heart until I watched Logan, Tristan and AJ suffer though it! It is the most helpless feeling in the world! But luckily they are feeling much better now!
SO this Thanksgiving I am VERY thankful for my HEALTHY beautiful children and amazing husband.
Needless to say this last week has been pretty uneventful. We spent most of the time at home trying to rest and recover, but I did get my Christmas shopping almost all the way done and mailed out to my nieces and nephews! So this year I'm ready for Christmas! I just have a few more things and I'm DONE! :) We bought the boys a $1,000.00 swing set/hide out fort for Christmas this year as their "big" present. It started out that I wanted to buy AJ a play house for Christmas (don't worry, it was going to be the castle one.) Then I started to worry that Logan and Tristan would feel cheated if AJ got something that big and they didn't. So I called Chad and told him I wanted to get them a $400.00 jungle gym instead. He thought that would be a good idea for the 3 of them and said he would meet me at the store with his "big" car to come and pick it up. It took about 30 min for him to get there. In the 30 min I managed to buy the jungle gym, talk myself out of the jungle gym and in to the swing set, return the jungle gym, buy the swing set and then second guess myself again. It was actually a lot more complicated than that because they had to check on inventory for both and print up an invoice, make sure the box size would fit in the car and all that fun stuff. So when Chad got to the store to pick it up, I had to tell him it went from a $400.00 jungle gym to a $1,000.00 swing set. Thank God he loves me and didn't kill me! HAHA After looking at the jungle gym again, I thought Logan would out grow it WAY to quickly and with the swing set, it has a club house that him and Tristan can hang out in. It actually has a 2 story clubhouse so AJ can still have his play house and the older boys can have the upstairs one. Well when we went to load it in the car, it wouldn't fit. Not even close! So we had to take everything out of the boxes and load up our cars with the pieces. When we got home we put it all in the shed. Chad and Bryan get to put it together in the dark Christmas Eve...should be interesting!Hopefully all the pieces made it!...Like I said, I'm lucky Chad loves me! Well when we moved things around in the shed, we moved the bucket with the Christmas tree. It was full of water! I never realized how much water could collect from humidity! It had about a gallon of water in the bucket! Well the lights and things were all rusted on the tree. Thankfully that was the only decorations I had in the outside shed! So a few days ago I put all the fall/Halloween decorations away and dug out the the winter/ Christmas decorations. I really just wanted to change out the place mats and candy dish on the table because they were Jack-o-lanterns and didn't go to well since Halloween is over. Once I started getting everything out I started to panic because last year the BX ran out of Christmas trees and there is nowhere else to buy them here. (They won't ship them here if you order online.)So I made Chad, Bryan and the kids get in the car with me a run to the BX to pick out a new Tree. I think there were only four to choose from, but we got one! Then came home and ended up putting it up over the weekend! Along with all the other inside decorations. A little early I know. I hadn't planned on putting them up but I couldn't help it... I love the holidays! :) I guess I said we spent the last few days relaxing, now that I think about it, some days were a lot more relaxing than others! But now my house looks so pretty! =)
We had planned on having dinner with my closest girl friend here and her family tomorrow along with a lot of other people, but the plans have changed. I don't want to spread these germs to her family, and Chad and Bryan really want to have dinner at home. I guess I can cook thanksgiving if they are going to be busy Christmas eve with a swing set.
This is my first Thanksgiving I'm going to cook away from home. I am really homesick this time of year anyway, but I REALLY miss my step mom right now. I love waking up Thanksgiving morning to the smell of Turkey in the oven. For years now She would wake up before the sun came up to get the Turkey in the oven since she knew we had other family to see that day. She's wonderful because she always planned dinner around our other families schedules and never complained! I love her for that! The other day I was talking to her on the phone planning my TG dinner and she was laughing so hard saying she wishes she could be here to see me have to take the giblets and stuff out of the turkey. (I used to be so horrified watching her do it!) Then I realized that she has taught me everything I know about feeding my family. Weather it is a quick dinner, home cooked meal or a full Thanksgiving dinner, I learned it from her. In fact I've learned A LOT from her! I love her so much! So I add my step mom to things I am thankful this year! And of course I'm Thankful for my daddy as well, but this post is long enough tonight, I'll go in to that another day!
So...I am very thankful this holiday for my friends and family... all of them.
I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving!!!