Breathe, just breathe...

It's the most wonderful time of the year. A time when I'm stressed about Christmas presents (What do I get and where do I find the money to buy it with?), recovering from Thanksgiving, writing Christmas cards, getting fat on Christmas party food (when should I start my diet?), participating in the church Christmas production (more time consuming than a high school musical), freezing my butt off.......... and now I'm throwing a birthday party for my precious little girl into the mix!!
With the overscheduled calendar on my fridge and the perpetual mess in my house, I think I just want to hop on an airplane to Tahiti.
But when I say that it's the most wonderful time of the year, I truely mean it. And having Caelen's birthday right between Thanksgiving and Christmas is just another reason that it's a fabulous time. A time for celebrating the little miracle we always wondered if would ever come! A time for celebrating the most amazing thing God has every done for a humanity that He loves perfectly. A time for remembering what we're thankful for like health, family nearby to celebrate with, wonderful memories and the people in my life who I've made them with, looking forward to more memories, my husband, my little girl, my home, food on the table, and so many precious people in my life whom I cherish!
So what I think I need to do is look at the calendar, ONLY today, not the scribbled-in-boxes extending into next year, and breathe, remember the important things, and that THESE are the good old days :)

I'm Caelen and I'm Thankful for Food!!!!

So what do you get when you take 17 relatives and friends, add turkey and stuffing and mix in a small house? A good time, apparently! I should not have worried because Thanksgiving went off much better than I had anticipated. I guess I was worried about the size of my house and that many people inside it on a cold day when we couldn't spill out into the yard. But we managed to all fit at one of two tables, we got all the (warm) food onto the table at once and I would say everything went really well!


Of course Caelen was a lot of the entertainment. As usual, she was shy at first but eventually warmed up to the idea of so many people in her home and was as fun as ever.
We did a potluck style dinner, so all that I had to make was the turkey, stuffing and gravy. Everything else was provided by all the guests. Caelen got to eat everything we were eating except for the stuffing since it had nuts in it and we're trying not to expose her to nuts yet. She LOVED it all......



.......as you can see from these pics! I think this one will have to go in the baby book under her first Thanksgiving because it says it all. She's never done this before but I'm assuming it was so delightful she wanted to get every last morsel.







Once she realized everyone thought this was funny she did it over and over again. After clean up was done it was straight to the bathtub with her!










We had everyone from my side (who lives in town) and Thomas' Dad's side of the family, some cousins, step-siblings, a gimp on crutches, and even a boyfriend or two. And just for the record, that's a tank top under a sweater that I'm wearing, not a red bra! LOL


Now it's time to get ready for Caelen's 1st birthday..... and then Christmas!