Weekending

The weekend after Thanksgiving is always one of my most favorite weekends of the year.

This year started out with Luke and I pulling an all-nighter with my brother and sister, Jon and Ash.  We hung out at their house until almost 1 am and hit Walmart first, where we could be inside and warm...

 by 2:30 am i ran home to tuck jaeger into bed... he really wanted to stay up, but his little eyes were so heavy and he was ready for his cozy bed, so i brought him home, kissed his head and left again... Younkers by 3:00... in and out like a pro and then out to the main mall to hit a few more stores.  I met back up with Jon, Ash and Luke and their friends Matt and Lori where we checked out of Walmart in pretty good time. 

 MCSports, Michaels, Cost Plus World Market, Dicks... we hit them all!

highlights included:  laughing, donuts at dicks, seeing the guys run to get in line when they heard the 1st 100 customers through the doors could win a $10,000 prize, seeing how excited my Luker's was and knowing that he felt like "big stuff" staying up all night.  We ended the adventure around 8 am with breakfast at Rainbow Grill and headed home to crash into bed.

Most of friday i felt down right crappy... note to self: your body does not appreciate you depriving it of that much sleep... if you choose to ignore your body and it's needs, it will revolt!

Saturday was long and lazy, just what we needed.  i cleaned the house a little bit and the boys hung out with the lubben boys down at the field and in the woods until dusk.  Pancakes and sausage for supper... 6 hungry kids circled around my table, laughing, telling stories, talking over eachother...chaos but a good chaos, the kind you want to have.  After supper our neighbor friends went home and we popped some popcorn and watched the movie Elf, one of my favorite Christmas movies.

Sunday morning we headed out to Vormittag tree farm to cut down a fat ole' Christmas tree.  No snow had yet fallen but the ground was cold and frosty and the sun was shining for the first time in days. 

 We love piling in Marc's truck, practically sitting on top of eachother as we two-track it out to the trees, bouncing and jostling along.  The boys run from tree to tree, yelling "what about this one?" and we go and check out every one. 

 Every year Marc reminds me that yes, the frasiers are pretty but you will hate it because all your ornaments fall off... so every year i come home with a spruce. 

 i love driving back to the big red barn where maggie will greet us with tail wagging... the boys jump out to play with maggie, and i usually wander over to the pile of clippings to grab branches for my windowboxes...the tree gets a good shakedown and then marc pays for the tree and we head for home.

  marc and i both love the drive there and dream of living somewhere in that vicinity... i can picture my dream home nestled amongst the hills and trees, along a dirt road.

  Once home we haul the tree into the house where it usually takes up a good portion of the room because this girl loves a FAT tree.  i love how the scent of evergreen fills the entire room.  i love how the lights twinkle on the tree... i love this tradition!

The weekend ended with a 45 minute drive to Fennville for our first Christmas party.  Family, bunko, laughter, white elephant gifts, build a mountain (taco salad), dessert... the festivities have begun!

Our weekend really stretched from wednesday through sunday... it was 5 days of wonderful!