Decorating Early for the Holidays

I'm sure our neighbors are looking at us like we are the craziest people on the planet. We have our Christmas decorations up. Yes, it is only November 22, and a week BEFORE Thanksgiving, but they are up. We worked on it all day today. The tradition in our house it to get them up the weekend of Thanksgiving, but we have changed our plans for Turkey Day and are heading to Texas. Rob's grandfather has just been diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and we wanted to spend the holidays with them. It is very important for us to be there right now. The weekend after we get home from Texas we are leaving for Orlando for Ethan's wish from Magic Moments. Because of time issues, we decided to do our holiday decorating early so it will be done and up when all of our traveling is done. The kids are so excited to be going to Texas again.












At school yesterday the kids had a Thanksgiving feast. They came home dressed like little indians and it was so adorable. Emily told me that they all had to say what they were thankful for and she said that she was thankful for her teacher because she loved her so much. Ethan said he was thankful for his entire family. They said they had a fun day.

This morning I was a slave driver. Everybody was wanting me to cook breakfast, but I just wasn't in the mood to start my day out in the kitchen the minute I woke up. I was really wanting a cup of coffee first. I told the kids that if they would unload the dishwasher then I would cook breakfast. I told them to work together and carry the dishes only one plate at a time and put them away so they wouldn't break. Lately, we have been letting them have more responsibilities in the kitchen. They make their own breakfast in the morning, pour their own drinks, etc. This is just one more thing they can do in the kitchen. They did a great job putting the dishes away and they loved every minute of it. Rob and I loved it, too. We sat and drank our coffee and watched the news while they unloaded the dishes. And then we tried to count up how many years (or will it be months) we can do this before they start to complain about it.