Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree!

Last night, Sean and I decorated our beautiful tree! I love unwrapping all of the ornaments and reminiscing about each one. It's fun to think about where we were in our lives the year we got the ornament, although it can be a little bittersweet too. Our tree has no theme. There are no required colors for the ornaments or lights. No even spacing between ornaments. It's more of a living scrapbook of our lives thus far.

My favorite ornament this year is a felt snowman with the year 2007 embroidered on his hat. His belly is cut-out and a clear plastic window covers the hole, a place for a picture. We put our family photo from last Christmas in it, the one we used for our Christmas cards. It's a very sentimental ornament to me. Our very first Christmas as a family of three! :) What a sweet memory.

My other favorite ornaments include Cory's 'Baby's First Christmas' ornament as well as our 'New Parents 2007' ornament.

One of the bittersweet moments I was talking about happened when I unwrapped the 'New Home 2005' ornament. We got this one the year we bought our house on Hollingsworth Road. We had so many hopes and dreams for that house and that land. We were going to create so many memories there. And we did. Just not as many as we had hoped. We did get to bring our first born home to that house. :) That is a super sweet memory. Even though that ornament doesn't apply to the house we live in now, we still put it on the tree. We sold that house to better our future and enable us to eventually have a bigger, better house with even more land. We had to move in order to build our hopes and our dreams. Had the opportunity to build our business presented itself prior to buying that house, we wouldn't have bought it. But that wasn't in the cards for us. We were meant to live in that house, even if it was only for two years. They were a wonderful two years, that's for sure.

Ah. Enough with the memories. We've got icicle lights to finish getting up outside. Well. OK. Sean has icicle lights to finish getting up outside. I have a baby boy who sounds like he may be ready to get up from his nap. :) Time to play!

Happy day after Thanksgiving!

We made it. We went to Cleveland Wednesday night after Sean got home from work to spend Thanksgiving with the Koss, Gang, and Meyer families. It was a pretty quick trip, but worth it for the time we got to spend with family.

I was kind of concerned about Cory and how he would deal with it all, but he did really well overall! We got in at 10 pm and he wasn't ready for bed until 1 am! Unfortunately he only slept until 7:20 am but then was able to take a 2 1/2 hour nap in the afternoon which was nice. He enjoyed playing with Bonnie and Patty and exploring a new house. Sean's cousin's baby, AJ was there in the evening. He is one month younger than Cory so it was fun to see them together.

We ended up eating at 6 pm and we were pulling out of the driveway at 7:15 pm to head home because Sean had to work today. :( It was a good trip home, not much traffic.

Today is 'Black Friday'. I just heard that a Wal-Mart employee in Long Island, New York was trampled to death this morning by the mob of people waiting to get inside. He was a 34 year old overnight stocker who was just trying to keep the people out of the store until it was time to open. How tragic. And all to save a few bucks. Ugh. Pathetic. So many prayers for him and his family.

Play day today! (And knee high socks)

We finally made it back to the Open Play Day at the rec center today after missing last week due to some pesky cold symptoms. Cory was ecstatic! It was really cute to see how excited he was to play somewhere other than our house and with someon other than me! He didn't even try to escape out of the gym door like he usually does. :) We stayed right up until 'closing' time at noon and headed home. I was sure he'd fall asleep in the car (something I try vehemently to avoid since it will ruin all attempts at a longer nap once we get home) but he didn't! Praise God! He stayed awake, had lunch and then took at nice 2+ hour nap! Yes, it has been a great day.

I just finished up in the kitchen. I made the pumpkin pie and the two pie shells for the chocolate cream pies. Tomorrow I'll make the chocolate cream filling and the apple pie. Hopefully baby boy will be in a cooperative mood and let me get it all finished!

I made a discovery a few days ago that I'd love to share! I found....are you ready for this.....the wonderful world of....KNEE HIGH SOCKS! Oh my goodness, I am in LOVE! They totally keep me 100% warmer than my regular socks. They are good. Very, very good. Everyone should have some! I'm definitely going to be stocking up on them for this winter season.

Just a few more days...

...until Thanksgiving! :)

Well, yesterday didn't exactly go as planned, but it all worked out in the end! We didn't get the lights on the house, but we did get the ones on the bushes. And they are colored. I am a white light person (except for on the Christmas tree) and Sean is a colored light person. For years he has tolerated my white lights outside, with the exception of the blue and green ones that we've added over the past few years. Well, yesterday after we pulled out all of our lights and realized none of them worked, I made a trip to Target (bummer - lol) to get new ones! Lemme tell ya. The shelves were almost bare. I think the warm weather enticed everyone to put up their lights yesterday. After standing in front of the light section for WAY too long, I ended up with 900 colored lights for our bushes. Sean is a happy guy!

We ended up putting the lights up in the dark. By the time I got home and we had dinner (we had skipped lunch since we were on the road) we had lost all light. So we bundled our sweet baby boy up in his snow suit and winter jacket, complete with hat and mittens! He was very unimpressed by it all. I was going to take a picture but decided not to put him through the torture. Once outside, he did have fun although moving around proved to be challenging for him but he did get the hang of it.

In the end we have beautifully decorated bushes and the house will just have to wait until next weekend!

Today was busy with cleaning the house from my week of recovery from 'symptoms' (you will never hear me say the words, "I am sick") and with grocery shopping for the stuff I need to make all four pies for Thanksgiving.

Sean is in Cincinnati tonight at our meeting and I am here with Cory (since Rose is in Pakistan) who is sleepy soundly in his bed. So, I am going to treat myself to some "do what I want to do" time, although I'm not quite sure what that is yet! Hmmm.....

Sundays

Sundays are such bittersweet days. They're wonderful because they are another full day as a family, generally doing as we please. But they are sad because tomorrow is Monday, a work day, meaning Sean won't be able to spend the day with us. Sigh. I am looking forward to six Saturdays and a Sunday!!! Just a few more years. Freedom is possible and it's going to happen to the Fryburgs!

Today we have to drive to the airport to pick up Rose and Steve's car, then take it back to their house and feed the finches. Afterwards, we are going to put up the Christmas lights outside! It's supposed to be 50 degrees here today, by far the warmest day we've had in a while so it's a good day to do it! We bought icicle lights yesterday at Target. We've never had them before. For some reason I've been sort of resistant to icicle lights until now...not sure why? I think they'll look good on our little house. I'll have to post a picture when it's all finished. We don't plan on turning them on until next weekend though.

I am excited to report that Cory slept until 9:15 am today!! He did wake up at 5:30 am and demanded a sippy of milk, but no big deal. It was quick and he went right back to sleep. If it means we get to sleep in until 9 am I am fine with that! :)

Off to begin this Sunday with a smile!

Friday night ramblings

This past week has been....trying. Cory and I have been overcoming symptoms that have prevented us from going to our usual activities. We didn't go to the Rec Center on Tuesday like we usually do for Open Play Day. We had to pass up an invitation to play with Anne and Carson, as well as another invitation to play with Luke and Lexie! And today we had to miss out on story time at the library! Needless to say we've been inside A LOT this week...but we've had some really good bonding time.

In these past few weeks Cory has started giving kisses and has become a lot more cuddly, giving hugs and laying his head on my shoulder to snuggle! It's sooooo cute! I've waited 16 1/2 months for these moments! Hard to believe our baby boy will be 17 months old next week!

Speaking of next week, it's Thanksgiving! I'll be making pies this year for dinner at Sean's Aunt Patty and Uncle Ron's house. I'm going to make two chocolate creme pies (they were the favorite last year), an apple and a pumpkin. I love, love, love pies!! They are my favorite dessert for sure.

April came to stay with us last night. She is my in-laws dog. They are traveling so she'll be staying with us for a while. She's very old, but very sweet and I think she has enjoyed all of the activity in our house so far. Cory thinks she is very intriguing...she has long fluffy hair and he laughs when it tickles his face! It's very cute. I find myself using that word a ton lately, especially when speaking of our son.

Sean just put Cory to bed so we're going to enjoy our down time with a movie and some popcorn! I love me some yummy air popped pop corn :)