And So It Begins

 This week marked the start of feeling behind for Christmas. I told Jeremy that I don't think I have ever been so stressed about Christmas before. I have bought essentially nothing yet and what is worse, I don't have a game plan for what I am buying. This is not a feeling I enjoy.

It kind of feels like everywhere I turn, I'm being bamboozled. Before I can even get to Christmas planning, this week was Carolyn and Jeremy's birthdays. Luckily, Jeremy and I are giving each other a trip/concert for our birthdays so there was not too much to do on that front, mostly just planning birthday meals. For Carolyn on the other hand, I spent a long time trying to think of the perfect gift. I finally came up with an idea, but it required an old meaningful photo. Unfortunately, the ones I had access to were too low resolution. I asked AI to try and clean some photos up for me. The result was comical. Needless to say, I was back to the drawing board on the gift and ended up with something much less heartfelt.

Yesterday, Elsie had a birthday party to go to. CC decided to come along and after we dropped Elsie at the party, CC and I went shopping. She and I found some amazing deals and I got some ideas for Christmas, but unfortunately, I couldn't really purchase anything with my little helper in tow. Turns out she has become really fun to shop with though.

I'm sure it will come together in the end. It always does, but this is exactly why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, Christmas is too stressful.

New Treasures

What to say about this week? It's been a busy one, with lots going on. Last weekend, Merrick, CC, and I went thrifting. CC need a black skirt for her choir concert this week. While we did find a black skirt, Merrick scored big time. I found on the top of one of the racks, two big bags full of ties. This particular thrift store typically sells their ties for about $5/tie. These bags were packed with about 40 ties each and labeled $9.99. Merrick was over the moon. He decided he wanted to call his cousins and see if they wanted in.

What followed would best be described as a tie draft. They took turns, round by round picking their favorite ties. Merrick was definitely geeking out about the whole thing.

With her new skirt, CC was ready for her choir concert on Thursday. Choir concerts tend to not be my favorite experience, but this was short and sweet and she did great. She did look a little like she was in pain throughout the concert. Afterwards, she said she was really nervous. Luckily for her, she has lots of concerts this year to get over her nerve.

The week was capped off with some big excitement yesterday. Jeremy and I drove about an hour out of town to check out a car we were interested in. One thing led to another and we ended up coming home with a new car. We are now the proud owners of a new 2025 Nissan Pathfinder. I wanted a sunroof and leather seats. Turns out to get those features, we would need the platinum trim level. To say this thing is fully loaded, is an understatement. It's a big change from the Pilot. I don't know. I'm excited about the new car, but I'm still not sure I need all the bells and whistles. It may take some time to get used to.

Halloween 2025

 This week was Halloween. We started the celebrations on Thursday, with our church harvest party and chili cook off. Our costumes were a bit of a debacle. CC didn't get to be what she wanted to be because we didn't have time to go a million places and piece together her dream. Instead, she settled for wearing a costume we had at the house. We also were in a tight spot with Elsie when we discovered that her costume would not fit over her cast and we were scrambling to find something that would work at the last minute. It definitely was not the ideal, but we got in together in the end. 

Friday was Halloween and the kids had the day off of school and I took the day off of work. I thought maybe we would go do something fun, but instead Merrick had basketball practice and then went to hang out with his girlfriend. Elsie and CC were on the lazy schedule. It was pulling teeth to get them to get dressed and ready for the day. They said they wanted to conserve their energy for trick-or-treating.

At some point I did convince the girls to carve Elsie's pumpkin. We then roasted roasted the pumpkin seeds for a fun fall snack.

The weather had been nice during the day, but we looked at the weather and noticed that it was supposed to start raining a 7pm. We decided to push up our trick-or-treating timeline and go from 5-7pm. We had an early dinner of "Frankenpizza" and headed out with our cousin, Isabel, to hopefully miss the rain. Unfortunately, the rains had different plans. It started raining a little after 5 and pretty much rained the entire time.

Thankfully, I had thought ahead and bought some ponchos. It was obviously important for Elsie to keep her cast dry so she spent much of the night checking, adjusting, and making sure we were accomplishing that. It was wet, our costumes weren't our first choice, but they got plenty of candy, so I guess it was mission accomplished.