Decorating at mom's...

On Saturday night, Bobby and I went to my mom's to spend some time with her, and Bobby had to put a new faucet on mom's kitchen sink. She was SOOO excited about the faucet!

I decided that I would help mom clean, maybe put up her Christmas tree and help her decorate the rest of the house. I did put up our decorations at home last week, and it helped me get into the Christmas Spirit a litte bit.

Well, I dusted the living and dining rooms, took some plants upstairs, and helped mom take things down off the walls. Well, Bobby and Ben went upstairs and got the tree out of the attic and stood it up for us. Mom and I fluffed the branches and then went to get out all the ornaments and other decorations...aka snowmen! Mom has somewhere near 200 different snowmen. NONE of them are the same, and they vary in size from small 1/2 inch ornaments, to a guy that's over 5 feet tall that used to scare the crap out of my dad when he walked in the living room. It's like someone's standing there waiting to jump you!!

I decorated the WHOLE tree by myself, and it turned out lovely, if I do say so myself (I also decorated our tree at home by myself...Bobby put 1 ornament on the tree here). Things were going well while decorating...I got a little choked up while putting the ornaments on when I came across the ones that represented my dad...snowmen dressed like a fisherman, fireman, and golfer, and a golfball that I had bought him somewhere around 10 years ago.

I didn't cry though...until we got out the tote that had the stockings in it. There was dad's stocking, right on top. That did it. I lost it. Of course, mom did, too. We cried for a long time, and then we had to decide what to do. Put it up or don't put it up? It didn't seem right to just leave it in the tote. But how could we leave that empty stocking hang there???? Well, we did hang it up. We decided that we are going to put something in it...a cigar from the humidor we bought him for Father's Day. Did we make the right decision? I'm still not sure. I feel bad that my mom has to look at it every day...I just don't know. Even now, just thinking about that empty stocking, I'm getting teary eyed. I miss him so much.

Tonight, I'm going to finish decorating. I still have to put out the Nativity and decide what I'm going to do for a center piece on my dining room table! I also need to make the finishing touches on the ornaments I made for my ornament exchange.

I'll be taking pictures of the decorations the next few days to share with you! Have a great evening!

Thanksgiving Recap

So it's been 2 weeks since I've updated. Sorry about that. I thought maybe I'd share with you how our Thanksgiving went, since it was only a little over a week ago, and there hasn't been too much else going on in our lives!

For Thanksgiving this year, we did something out of the ordinary. We went to my Aunt Becky's house (my mom's sister), which is near Harrisburg, instead of staying at home. It was a nice change of scenery. Bobby and I left at 2 on Wednesday and hit rush hour in Hbg and got to my aunt's at 6:30 (after checking into the hotel). We had pizza, hung out with Aunt B, Uncle Scott, and my cousins, Ashlee and Kelsey, until about Midnight. My mom and Ben got there somewhere around 11pm, because they both had to work!

Thursday was the day I was dreading, so much. I really thought it was going to be extremely difficult, just like I thought daddy's birthday was going to be super difficult, too. It wasn't though...for me, mom, or Ben. We got through it with no tears at all. We had a nice meal and visited with my mom's family and had a great day. After all the kids made stockings (that included me) Bobby and I went to Hershey Park with Kelsey and her boyfriend to go see the park lights and watch a cool show that was synchronized with music. It was pretty cool, and I got some neat pictures!

Friday, I went Black Friday shopping with the girls and Aunt B and had a great time. :) I got some good deals and even got myself a new purse! Bobby went to Cabela's in Hanover and he got us some new chairs for bonfires this coming summer! They recline and everything! So excited!

We left Aunt B's and went over to my Uncle Brian's (mom's brother) around 1:00 and stayed until about 3:30...which was MUCH later than we had planned to stay! When we got home, we had a bunch of friends come over, watched some football, talked, and played some games until about 1 am.

Saturday I got up early and went out to Bobby's cousin Jill's and made candy for Christmas with most of the women on his mom's side of the family. When we finished, I had to come home so we could go to Penn Hills for another Thanksgiving dinner at my Aunt Karen's!

Dinner at Aunt Karen's went better than I had expected for everyone there, too. I was surprised by how very UN-emotional everyone was. I said to my mom it didn't seem like anyone was having too hard of a time because dad ALWAYS had to work on holiday's...so it was just like any other year. My mom and grandma seemed to agree with me, too. We stayed there until about 12:30, because we watched the Green Mile....one of my absolute FAVORITE movies, EVER :) oh yeah, and Nova, my GORGEOUS 9 year old cousin, fell asleep in my lap. It was great. She's such a sweetie pie!!

Sunday we hung out at home and watched the Steelers LOSE with JohnAllen. Even tho they lost, we had a fun evening and went to bed early...The boys had to get up and hunt super early.

Well, that's about all that happened Thanksgiving weekend. I'll post more again later. I've got lots of stuff to do this evening!