A Great Kind of Exhausted

It was another busy week around here.  Being in retail, I'd expect nothing less.  We worked hard getting everything set up for our Black Friday sale and my boss and I still wound up staying until 1:30am.  By Thursday morning (or later that morning, I suppose) I was up and baking a homemade pecan pie.  Knowing how long it can take the four of us to get ourselves put together and out the door, we started gathering our fun holiday clothes and packing the diaper bag for a long day out.

Of course, before we left, we had to get a couple shots of the girls before we let them at the food.

Julia thought it was pretty fun to get all dressed up and wore her red bow from the time we put it in her hair up until we had to take it out for bed.

We went to Robert's dad's house and spent some time with his family and ate a great meal.  After that, we went to my mom's and spent some time with my immediate family and then my grandparents stopped by after dinner.  Julia absolutely loved a holiday that revolved around eating all day long!  She was particularly fond of pie.  I envision myself making a lot of mini-pies in the future because the girl downed them in one big swallow and would have likely eaten a full size pie by herself if allowed.

We ended the evening with my family as we always do--with a little craft.  I can't say too much about it, because it does involve something to be gifted later, but the end of the night craft is always one of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions.

The next morning, mom and I headed out shopping.  Now, it's becoming a tradition for the two of us to go out shopping together, though we are by no means the hardcore, wait in line to get in, pepper spray others in a crowd type.  In fact, neither of us had seen anything real particular that we were after, it's just always fun to go spend some time together, experience a sort of once-a-year unusual outing, and of course, take advantage of some great prices!  We usually can find places to go and this year was no different.  We were at our first store by 7am and shopped until I had to be to work at 2pm.

The next couple days were filled with the best of intentions that my body just wasn't as excited about as my mind.  For as much begging as I did to get our Christmas tree put up before Turkey Day, it took until Sunday for us to actually haul it down and set it up last night!  It also was not quite the Norman Rockwell experience as I'd pictured with several strings of lights halfway out and we were about 3 minutes into sorting through boxes before we had shattered glass on the floor.  Nevertheless, it was fun to do and another great first for Julia to experience with us!  I find myself pausing during moments like these and wondering if she's ever had a Christmas tree...
if she's ever seen one...
if she's ever had her very own present to open on Christmas...
if she ever experienced a family Christmas, even if it was when she was too young to remember...
if they even celebrated Christmas at the orphanage and how...
and how can I make this Christmas great for her....

I think this year's advent calendar will be as much for me and it will be for her.  I am excited to count down to what will be such a unique Christmas for each of us this year.  Speaking of, I'd better go make an advent calendar!  Good thing I got such a good deal on some on Black Friday! :)