Holiday Rules:

1. There shall be no Christmas Music permitted (except for the random singing of jingle bells by toddlers through out the year) until the Friday following Thanksgiving.

2. There shall be no Christmas decorating permitted until the Friday following Thanksgiving.

3. There shall be no planning of Christmas until the Friday Following Thanksgiving.

4. There shall be no Christmas decorating left to do by the evening of the Saturday following Thanksgiving.

The Friday following Thanksgiving is Tree Day at our house.
I am not a generally demanding/particular person,
but I do need my tree the day after Thanksgiving.
And because my husband is the good man he is, he does his best to grant me my semi-ridiculousness.
So Friday morning we got dressed, got in the car, and found our tree.
We found a place that sells all their trees for $20 bucks.
(if you're in Boise- the market on Fairview just before the Cloverdale intersection)

What do you do when you find a place that sells all their trees for $20 bucks and you have to pay crazy heating bills to keep your living rooms very high vaulted ceiling from eating all the heat in your house already?
YOU GET THE BIGGEST TREE YOU CAN FIND!

Enter very cute girls in Christmas jammies next to ginormous (10 foot) tree.


Our house smells like a pine forest.
Havah is singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town "her own way".
Lilly wants a "baby Cin-erella" or "a mommy cow" (of the real variety) for Christmas.
I think that somehow this years Christmas tree is very much a reflection of how I feel... which is funny, because that's how I felt about last years tree...
And my husband, who basically told me when we were teenagers that Christmas trees are evil, just can't help himself- every time he comes in the house he says something about how great that tree is.

God is really good, and so is Christmas.
(so long as it leaves room for Thanksgiving)

The honeymoon is over...

Thanksgiving was our 5 year anniversary.
I don't mean to get all sentimental... well actually I do. That's a lie.

I write on this blog all the time about how amazing Cori is... but you should know, I'm not exaggerating when I talk about him.

When we got married it was like someone said, "Congratulations, here is your real life, you can stop living that pretend life from before." I believe that feeling was a gift because not only have the last 5 years been the best of my life, they have also been some of the hardest. And I couldn't have done what I needed to do with out him.

Cori has been my advocate when I could not and did not know I needed advocated for. He works so hard to provide for us. He is not perfect, but he is always trying to be better. He makes time to help, if someone needs help he will rearrange his work schedule- (sometimes that means staying up late into the night) so that he can move people, help them fix their cars/toilets/sprinklers, going out to see people who are sick int he middle of the night... Whatever he needs to do- he makes time. And not just for other people, he does all those things for me and the girls and takes us on dates and snuggles with us and grows a garden and does school (when he can) and works crazy hours. AND he is romantic and funny and silly.

He is goodness. And I am so grateful for him. I had a pretty stiff list of expectations in the man I married, and he exceeds them it ways I never could have imagined.

There are so many things for us to be better at. So many places for us to improve and things to accomplish and become. I am so grateful to do and be and accomplish with him, because life is hard sometimes, but I know together, we can do those hard things.

The honeymoon really is over- and real life is so much better.

Pie Day!

I love Thanksgiving.

It is my hands down favorite holiday, and dreadfully under-rated.
It is all the things that I love in a family activity...

Everyone's hands can be busy accomplishing something (cooking/eating/cleaning up)

Visiting with busy hands (my brain is better at visiting when my hands are busy)

(secret learned from my Grandmother, cook your crusts upside down, this requires 2 pans FYI, and they won't shrink)

Eating good, special food.
PIE!

It's low key and inexpensive.

Put all that together with hours of reflecting on just how blessed we are... and I don't think you can come up with anything better.

(what filling defeating crust looks like...)
Today is Pie Day at our house.
Pumpkin, Apple-Walnut, Raspberry-Peach, Logan Berry, chocolate cream, vanilla cream,
a pumpkin custard and a peach crisp (because Lissa should get Thanksgiving desert too).

Happy (almost) Thanksgiving!