Thanksgiving

My Grandma Lois Carder passed away the week before Thanksgiving. So, Jonathon, Caleb & I got in the car Thursday before Thanksgiving and headed toward home. We were actually supposed to be leaving that morning for a Youth Specialties conference in Tennessee, so Jonathon's mom was with us to watch Caleb. We ended up taking her home on Thursday night, staying there so that we could see Caleb's Grandpa Vern and heading toward my parents Friday morning. We will miss Grandma a lot, but Jonathon & I both were so blessed by our grandparents. We had (and still have) some truly amazing people as grandparents and they greatly influenced our parents and us and for that we are thankful!

Because the funeral was on Monday, we were able to stay through the Thanksgiving holiday and spent the week with my Mom & Dad. Joy & her family as well as Janese and her family stayed with my parents as well, so we had a full & lively house and we all LOVED it! My brother Jay and his family came as much as they could, as they have a new baby. Even though we missed an awesome conference, we were both glad to have seen some family that we haven't seen in a long time and got to spend some quality time with my siblings, parents and Caleb's cousins!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

We decorated the Christmas tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We were planning on having Caleb down for a nap that afternoon, but for some reason he didn't take one. (He must have known the fun he'd miss out on). Anyway, so we were sure that he'd want to "help" and I wasn't really looking forward to that. But he did end up helping and it was very cute. He'd grab an ornament and go to the front of the tree and bend his knees like he was looking for the perfect spot. He didn't understand the hooks, but he'd carefully try to place the ornament on a limb and hoped that it wouldn't fall off. He was successful several times.