Thanksgiving...

So I bet you have been wondering why I have not posted anythign in over a week. Let me explain....

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving my Mother-in-law, Danita kept the kids for me so that I could clean the house and cook in preparation for our BIG Thanksgiving Lunch! I picked the kids up late in the afternoon. Josh picked up Chinese take out for us, so that I would not have to make dinner (he's great!).
Opa (Josh's EX-step-dad, John) called to said that he was in town. He asked if he could drop by to see the kids, so he came by and the kids had so much fun seeing him. They have really missed seeing him! I did not have a chance to visit with him very much because I was still getting things ready for Turkey day, but with all the screaming and laughing - I think he and the kidos had lots of fun. Once Opa left, we put the kids in the bed! I stayed up until 2 am preparing the food. This year I cooked turkeys in my crock-pots! I lined up my 3 crock-pots on the kitchen counter, placed 1 boneless turkey breast (about 4 lbs a piece) in each crock pot and cooked them on low for about 8-9 hours (time varied with each crock pot). Thanksgiving day I woke up at 6am (so that is 4 hours of sleep). I had tossed and turned all night because I could smell the turkey cooking and I kept worrying that they were going to burn or something. But anyway... I took my shower and got dressed. Then I woke everyone up! Helped the kids get dressed and they sat down to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I continued to cook! Around 11am our company started to arrive... 2 hours early! I managed to get lunch ready and served right at 1 - just as planned. I ended up only having 22 people for lunch, due to a few last minute cancellations, but that is still a full house! I was so excited that the food was good!
Everyone had left our house by 4pm, so I cleaned the kitchen put all the leftovers away... then it was time to go to my MIL's house for Thanksgiving Dinner. At this point, we were all still stuffed from lunch, but we ate again. We made it back home around 9pm. Jackson and I stayed up watching a movie and I finally went to bed around 11pm - completely exhausted! BUT, I could not let all of those Black Friday deals pass me by.... I woke up at 2:30AM to get dressed and my friend Liz picked me up at 3AM to go shopping! Yes I am crazy! We had planned to go by a local restaurant that was handing out gifts to their first 200 customers, but when we drove by this place there were hundreds of people already standing outside waiting - I don't do long lines in the cold weather, so passed on that one! We headed to Kohl's. Again there were 2 HUGE lines that had already formed - we opted to sit in the car until they opened the doors. We wanted to avoid the people that push and shove! Once we finished at Kohl's we went to the Mall of GA. We hit The Disney Store (unbelievable deals!), The Children's Place, JCPenney, Belk, ToysRUs, American Signature Furniture CO, TJMaxx, Micheal's and SAMS. Oh, and we had to take a Donut run and multiple other food stops... ya gotta refuel with sugar and caffeine!
We made it back home around 3 or 4PM. I was so tired, my eyes were crossing!!!! I went straight to bed. I got back up at 6Pm to serve leftovers to the kids and Josh. Then I went to bed for the night around 8pm and I slept until 8am the next morning (Sat).
I had a massage scheduled for 9:30, so I took a shower and was off for some much needed relaxation! I had planned to sleep through my massage, but she talked the entire time!!! At least she did work that kink out of my neck. I had some money left over on my gift certificate so I purchased this heated neck wrap and it is my new favorite thing! Anyway, I rushed back home to take another shower and prepare to greet our next round of Thanksgiving guests.
Around noon Josh's Dad, Joe (aka Pa Joe), step-mom, Rhonda (aka Ro-Ro) and Rhonda's mom Glenda arrived from Alabama. I had originally thought that I would cook for them as well, but I was too tired and THANK GOD they suggested Pizza! So Rhonda and I went to pick up several pizzas, bread sticks and hot wings. YUMMY! We also had 4 birthday parties - because they live out of state and obviously would not be here for everyone's birthday - we went ahead and celebrated mine, Jackson's, Alexis' and Jonathan's - Rhonda had made us a red velvet cake, they brought decorations, hats and gifts. Josh and his Dad sat in front of the big screen TV watching the Iron Bowl - Football is very important in our family (not to me, but everyone else). Unfortunately, Auburn didn't win, but I think we still managed to have Fun! Just before Pa Joe and Ro-Ro were going to leave, we were going to take a family photo. We usually take this photo on the couch, so Josh and I were sitting in our usual spot - Jackson jumped on us and we were tickling him. Of course he was giggling and making noise - our little dog, Cooper took that to mean that Jackson was hurting Josh! Cooper bit Jackson on the bottom of his foot! It was a pretty bad bite! I cleaned it up and bandaged it, but you will have to remember this incident - it will come back to haunt us a few days later! That's our Thanksgiving celebration in a nutshell!

Sunday (11/30) was my birthday. Yes, I am 29 again this year - isn't that funny how that happens? It was such a special day... I was allowed to sleep in until 9! I could hear Jonathan upstairs singing, saying the sun is up, and announcing that nobody had fed him breakfast... but I just put a pillow over my head and tried to sleep through it! Bad mommy! :)
I didn't do anything special for the kids breakfast - just cereal, but Mommy had homemade strawberry cake! The kids were so mad that I would NEVER let them have cake for breakfast, but I got to! My mom had made me this cake and I felt entitled to eat it whenever I wanted - I figured I walked enough this weekend - I earned it! Of course I called my mom to tell her what I was doing - she was probably appalled that I was eating it for breakfast, but she was in so much pain. She hurt her shoulder almost a year ago when she was on a trip out west with her friends. She was taking a picture of her friends at a museum in St Louis, she took a step back and fell down an entire marble staircase! I am not sure of the exact name of the injury, but it I know that her arm was completely detached from her neck/shoulder. She was so determined to finish the trip so after a trip to the hospital in St Louis - she carried on with her 2 week trip! Once she returned home she had to have surgery on her arm/shoulder/neck. They had to replace one of the major ligaments and do a bone graph. Then she went through an extensive recover/Physical Therapy period. She would kill me for saying this but she is in her 70's, so this was MAJOR for her, but she pulled through with flying colors! Then a few months ago her arm/shoulder started to hurt again. I thought she must have pulled something loose. So when I talked to her on Sunday - I could tell she was in major pain. I asked if I could do anything for her and of course she said no, but I thought that the warm neck wrap that I had bought for myself would be helpful for her, so I looked on the Internet to see where I could buy one for my mom. I found that Bed Bath and beyond carries them and they are cheaper than the spa (go figure!). So Alexis and I ran out to pick one up for her. She was so thankful! And it does help with the pain. Once we were back home, we pulled out all of the Christmas Decorations and got to work. We put the tree up and plugged in the lights - half of the lights were out on our pre-lit tree - what a pain! The kids had a blast putting the ornaments on the tree while we played our Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas CD. This is a tradition in our family - it was started by Josh's mom when he was a little boy. As I was unpacking the decorations, I tried to pull things that I no longer use. I bagged up all of those decorations and I am going to give them to a single mom that doesn't have the money to buy decorations. I would like to encourage everyone to do this. I had a bunch of unused decorations that were taking up much needed space in my little attic - and now this other family is putting them to good use. :)