Christmas

Merry Christmas to you, dear readers.
Our Christmas week was wonderful. We spent several days with Jeremy's family and then several with mine. The gifts were great this year, too. We are more than blessed, that's for sure.
We treated my parents to family pictures this year for their present and my Mom was really glad at how they turned out. I think we are a great-looking family. That's for sure. And it was nice to spend time with my siblings and their spouses. We really haven't gotten to do that much since we all got married. I'm finally feeling like I'm starting to know who my siblings-in-law are.
As for my aching for a child, it's still there, but maybe not as bad as I thought it would be. I sort of feel like I'm in a race with my siblings, now that we're all married. I know it's not true, but it still feels like it. I'm fighting the feeling, though.
I go back to work tomorrow. I know I really didn't deserve the week off that I got, but it's still going to be hard to go back to work when my husband doesn't have to until next week.
Good news: we got the escrow check so we're going to pay back my grandparents and pay off most of the rest of the carpet we put in the house. Then, we'll pretty much be done with it. We have great plans of paying off some debt this year. And my husband has been approved to finish his master's degree. He has turned in his prospectus and gotten it approved and his professor told him that he might not have to take the extra course we thought he was going to have to take. He's applied to not have to take that course and if he gets approved by one more person, that will save us time, effort and money. Pray hard. I'm so excited for him to be this close to finally getting some things done that he's been working on for so long. I'm so proud of him. I don't say that often enough, but now you know.
As the year draws to a close, I'm planning to do a post on here that sort of wraps up the highs and lows of our year. Then, we get to forget about 2011 and move on to 2012. May the last week of your year bring much happiness and family time. Here's to finishing out 2011 with a bang and making it one to remember.

Missing

Holidays are wonderful and I absolutely love them. I mean, love them. Especially Christmas. For one thing, it speaks to my love language (gift-giving). I love going out and finding the perfect something for everyone in my family. I love the food and the being together and the feeling that good things are going to happen.
However, I don't like the feeling that something is missing. Or, actually, someone. We've been trying to grow our family for four and almost a half years now. I see my friends with their kids as they send out Christmas cards with their pictures of their happy families. I see them doing "elf on a shelf." I see them taking lots of pictures of their child on Santa's lap. And I wish I were doing the same thing.  Even if my mother-in-law has informed me that when we have kids we aren't going to get much for Christmas anymore because she's going to be spoiling her grandchildren. That's okay with me, too. Maybe, next Christmas . . .

Catching up

So, it's been awhile again since I posted last. For some reason, after Thanksgiving, things just got busier and busier. Go figure. :-)

So, Thanksgiving went really well. I didn't say anything I would regret later to my cousin, but I did reassure her that I love her. And we played with her sweet, happy little boy. And loved on everyone there. It was awkward at times, and not as easy as I wish I could say it was, but it was good.
And my Grandpa looks good, too. He's in the middle of going through 6 or 7 weeks of radiation for his cancer, but the doctors said the chemo shrank the tumors and that he's doing really well. He seemed in really good spirits and didn't sleep much more than "normal" for him.

Since then, I've gone through several parties, one of the ones where I sell kitchen items and one that was a church ladies' Christmas party and lots of fun. I've made several crocheted gifts for family and shopped for the rest of the gifts. In our family, we not only have Christmas in December, but we also have four birthdays. Whew!

What's really amazing and wonderful is that we get to spend Christmas with our family for the first time in three years. We're headed to Memphis for a few days to see his family and then back through Louisiana to see my family. I'm so excited! I've got everything wrapped and a pumpkin pie made for my father-in-law. I'm so ready for this week off of work and a week with family. So ready. I plan to take my camera. Hopefully, I will remember to use it this trip.