Holiday Blues

Holidays….one word with so much baggage.  For us the holidays are crazy as we have so many families to squeeze into our short trips.  We recently took the journey back to Denver for thanksgiving.  We had a great time but were glad to get home.  I feel so guilty like we have a checklist of people to see and like we don’t get quality time with any of them.   It’s hard and part of me dreads that same flustered feeling at Christmas…but I still want to go back and see everyone.  We are both very family oriented people so we can’t imagine not seeing everyone.  This year seems especially special since I have so much to be thankful for with Paisley and my Mom and health.  The family makes all the stress worth it J

There is the financial pressure too.  With me not working now we are on a tight budget.  Luckily I always try to start a couple of months early so we can space out our purchases.  We only have stocking stuffers for the girls left but I have to wait for one more paycheck before I can do that.  And I usually get all my cousins a small gift but with 8 of them it adds up fast and we will not have it in our budget this year to do that.  I feel bad like I’m letting them down, but I’m sure it will be ok.  BJ and I are forgoing presents for each other this year too.  We are thinking of postponing our Christmas/birthdays gifts till after our taxes.  The color on one of our TVs went out so we are hoping there will be some good deals then and we can do that for our presents to each other ;)  I’m tired of looking at green food on the food network channel…green steak is not appealing J

Then last but first on my mind is the food of the holidays.  Since starting my work out and dieting efforts I lost two pounds before we left for Colorado but upon returning have put both back on.  Granted I didn’t work out on our trip like I had before we left and eating was just too hard to manage with all the meals we were served.  But I’m still frustrated that I’m not getting the results I want.  It’s like the first thing the holidays bring to mind is food.  Ug!  Plus it’s so hard to eat salad while BJ and the kids chow down on chili dogs or even chicken nuggets seem tasty and the kids eat snacks all day long and if you see my kids they are still little bean poles…Maybe I’m just making excuses, but to me they are frustrations.

Other happenings in our life are not too exciting.  Bianca’s potty training has been going very well and as a reward she got to pick out a beta fish (it’s actually our second set as our first ones died while we spent time in the hospital for Paisley).  She names them mommy fish and daddy fish :0p .  We got our tree up and the biggest battle is keeping the ornaments on as they always seem to find themselves in little hands.  Yesterday I told her we could decorate after her nap and I sent her to bed…5 minutes later she comes out to tell me she had a good nap….nice try missy…ps she never took her nap but we still decorated and she just went to bed early.  Paisley is good….feisty as ever and full of spunk and then there is my little angel Gage who is just so perfect!  Every day I have to pinch myself because I can’t imagine being so blessed!