.: DECEMBURRRRRRRRRRRR

How can it be just a week before Christmas?? This has got to be the fastest year on record. I am ready for a new year too, I guess time flies when you are having fun!!

Speaking of fun, we have had a great couple of weeks at our house. In the past 3 weeks we have:

decorated the porch for the holidays
purchased a large Frasier Fir xmas tree (one of our largest ever!!)

redecorated the Washington booth >
had a craft show
saw the Festival of Lights Parade for the first time
gotten the flu,

missed a craft show due to the flu
gotten over the flu

witnessed Daddy making 2 batches of homemade chocolate chip cookies
Emily lost 2 teeth
shopping, shopping and more shopping

It has been an interesting few weeks, to say the least. Thanksgiving weekend was pretty fun. Kim and Keith were in town, and after picking up from the Folepi craft show, we walked Tessa and the girls over to the parade. It was so fun. We always visit the lights, but had never seen the parade. Thankfully the weather was perfect and not too cold. Tessa then spent the night with us and slept in the same bed as Emily. When we tucked them in that night, it was like having two little Emilys in the house. So Cute!! (for those who don't know they look ALOT alike) I am kicking myself for not taking photos.

We got the tree that weekend too, and the girls had a good time decorating it. We have a small (fake) antique looking tree in the front window. Our cat seems to like it too, it only fell over once. Growing up at my house, we always said: "IT IS NOT CHRISTMAS UNLESS THE TREE FALLS OVER" It has only gone down once. At least it was not the real one.

I got a wild idea to re-do the Washington craft booth. I have not liked how it looks for some time...sales have been good, but it seemed that people could not reach the shelf, so Wes and I headed over to swap out a table and put in a large white cabinet. We were there about 5 minutes when a shelf fell off the wall and took a huge chunk out of the side of Wes' ear. It was awful. We packed it and decided to 'glue' it up at home. The booth looks good now, but it was totally not worth my honey getting hurt.

We then started the final touches on our LAST show of the year. I was getting really excited, even having some new cute things made up. I wanted to have some greenery this year, and Papa cut some fresh cedar out of the woods. I sat up the night before cutting and wiring up the bundles...boy did they look neat, then we all headed to bed early (wake up time was 5am)

I was awakened by Anna at 1:45...she had gotten sick in the bathroom. I decided to try to sleep in Elaine's bed in order to be closer to her, and the poor thing....she got sick every 20 minutes for the next 4 hours straight. Right at 5am, when Wes got up, Elaine started in...Now since I had not slept at all, I kept thinking that Wes could take the truck to the show and unload, then come home, and then I would head to the show and stay for the day. I was not feeling very well myself, but I attributed that to a night of no sleep and a bit of stress over everything. I got to the show at 7:15, set up like crazy and at 9:15 had to go lay down in the car. I felt so horrible. I knew I was getting sick too. Thankfully Granny and Jennifer (and later Jessica) were there to do my job and they stayed all day taking care of my booth. I was so happy and relieved that they could all help me out.

Wes, being the trooper he is, stayed home with all of us, cleaning, walking us to the bathroom, doing countless loads of laundry. (by this time Amelia was sick too) Then at 3:00, went and cleaned up the whole craft show. (Papa came to help too, with his new truck) The day went well without me there...I just hated not being there, but I was just too sick.

*by some miracle Wes and Emily have not gotten sick. I don't understand how, but it happened....

It has been our tradition that after the Richwoods show, we being our cookie making.

NOT THIS YEAR

I could not stand the taste or smell of any food, and I think Wes really missed a fresh batch of cookies everyday, so he found some new recipes off the internet, and began baking himself!! Now, Wes does not cook at all, and I am not even sure that he can boil water, but he managed to make 2 awesome batches of homemade cookies...completely homemade, by himself, and they turned out great!!! Those cookies did not last long!!!

He did take a cooking class this summer (as my mother's day present) but they did not make cookies, it was all grilling and seafood. I was very proud of him, and I am thrilled that he liked to cook....maybe I can teach him to make chicken alfredo...yum...

I FINALLY started feeling better, so we made a mad dash to Wally World. I tried hard to make up for the lack of holiday shopping by hiding presents under the coats in the cart. I did pretty good too, only a handful of goodies to get. Daddy took all of us girls out to the mall last week for dinner and shopping. It was fun and felt so good to get out of the house. I had not gone anywhere for almost a whole week.

Here is some pics of our holiday decor:

An old crock on our front porch: