the stockings were hung.....

I completely forgot my camera on Turkey Day, so I have no pics of the celebration. Let me begin by giving you an update on my mom (thanks you for all the prayers)...Nichole and I escorted her to her first chemo treatment on Wednesday-we thought this was a wise choice since she was eager to get started and we were told she should feel fine the day after treatment. It took about 3 1/2 hours for the whole treatment...they start by giving her fluids (she gets everything by i.v.) then the next bag is her antimedics (antinausea, and steriods) then the next bag is her first chemo medicine and then the last bag is her 2nd chemo meds. She was surrounded by wonderful nurses and we struck up a few conversations with other women who were doing their treatments-giving my mom some hints as to what she could expect. She felt a little woozy after the treatment but went home and had a great night sleep. Thanksgiving she felt okay-not a huge appetite and a little tired. Friday she was a little tired and having a hard time eating salty foods-they are not tasting good to her at all. Saturday it hit her hard and she felt miserable-no appetite, very naseated, very sleepy and she is getting sores in her mouth(one of the side affects). Today she reported more of the same as yesterday, but she did try to eat a little today and didn;t sleep as much as yesterday. She is hoping to wake up tomorrow feeling better and hoping to be able to go to work..her next treatment is on December 17th-so hopefully she will feel good by christmas.

Turkey day was great!...we woke up and Chris made a big breakfast of biscuits and gravy, eggs and bacon-the kids loved it-they love when Chris makes them his famous biscuits and gravy! Then we got to cooking-Chris made his families specialty-squash casserole-until Chris and I were married I'm pretty sure the Beckers hadn't had a cheesy casserole at too many get togethers-Chris introduced a little casserole cookin' and he's had the job every Thanksgiving since-even though he promises that no one in my family eats it and he's not sure why he is requested to bring it year after year-let me tell you the dish was completely empty this year! I made a few new recipes this year-I made a rosemary roasted vegetable dish-which was not only beautiful, but delicious!...and I made a new recipe for blackberry cobbler-chris' favorite and a super easy-super delicious recipe! As usual there was way too much food and we all ate way too much-now that Lainie has decided to become a vegetarian (and she takes it very seriously!no animal eating!) all she ate on Thanksgiving was pumpkin pie-at the end of the night she had had 3 pieces and so needless to say she is sick of pumpkin pie! Since Molly was hosting a wonderful Thanksgiving in Chatanooga and was not here to shop with me on Friday at 5 a.m., I had to find some other suckers to get up with me....I set my plan in motion and packed up my family to spend the night at Chris Payne's house Thanksgiving night, knowing that if I was there ,surely I was going to be able to get Taylor up to go with me! To my surprise, Sally and Sarah were also spending the night and after a little convincing, I talked them into it to. We set up girl camp in the living room and thought we were going to sleep at about 10.-I left Tim and my Chris out by the bonfire and snuggled into bed...at about midnight sassy (the payne's dog) came in and climbed right into bed with me chomping on a water bottle-i was mad, grabbed it and threw it-it hit taylor, who took it and hid it and led sassy out of the room...we had a little discussion about how we were getting up in a few hours and needed to sleep-about an hour later-tim let coco(our little schnauzer) out of her kennel and she came bounding in licking and jumping and whining-this upset sassy and all of the sudden there was about to be a scuffle on taylor-i grabbed coco-stomping back in the back room and kenneled her as taylor took sassy into chris and tims room and we settled back in for sleep-about and hour and a half later tristan woke up and turned the tv on LOUD and woke us all up-he wanted to watch cartoons...my alarm went off at 4 a.m. and we all got up-i'm not so sure we needed an alarm-we were on quite a role of being awakened!....we headed out to chesterfield mall and scored some great deals-we got a free mp3 player from old navy(yes molly i got it this year-i didn't oversleep), i got a buy one get one FREE deal on holiday sweaters at the gap-so once again i got the kids their christmas sweaters and macy's had some great sales too....oh and my highlight of the morning was the eggnog latte (my fave) from starbucks to kick off the big morning. we headed of the mall as the sun was coming up and went to meet the rest of the becker girls down at soulard, we hit a cute store down there called -the porch-super cute gift store! next, it was on to viviano's-i was quite surprised to find out that they have opened other locations around st. louis so there were very few people in the store! we hit the missouri bakery for a few sweets and then onto lunch at Favazza's- it did not disappoint. Lainie and I headed out early and headed home...Chris's grandfather was rushed to the hospital on thanksgiving night because he was having trouble swallowing his turkey-and they live in a tiny town in kentucky-long story short the surgeon finished his thanksgivning meal with his family before coming in to perform surgery on chris's grandfather and after surgery, he seemed fine, but kathy and keaton and grandma jones got a call in the middle of the night to hurry back to the hospital b/c he was not doing so well. they ended up transferring him to a hospital in Paducah, and after tests-they found that he had a slight heartattack and he has pneumonia..so chris went to kentucky to be with him. we're all praying for him, but he is quite a fighter...he has diabetes, parkinson's disease, emphesyma, and double lung cancer (has had it for 2 years)!

So Chris surprised me and he and the boys put our tree up and put the lights on it while Lainie and I were shopping and lunching. When I got home, Chris headed off to Kentucky and I was left with the kids and the fun job of getting out our 4 crates full of Hallmark ornaments to decorate the tree. Those familiar with Hallmark ornaments know that there is a system to our tree and I had to remind my children of the rules that go along with decorating the tree. Now I love our tree-it makes tons of noise (because of all of the moving ornaments) and it is beautiful and full of character and the kids love to tell the stories of the ornaments and they love picking out a new hallmark ornament every year...but oh would i love to have my own "themed" tree that i could decorate as i like-one of these years i will have it! Now when Chris and I got married we were very lucky b/c all of his life his mom had been collecting ornaments for him, so from the very beginning we always had a ton of ornaments on our tree. The hallmark ornaments though all come in their own box, wrapped in there own plastic and this makes for a very long and tedious task of decorating the tree-b/c you have to open the boxes, unwrap the ornament, hang the ornament, re-stuff the box with the plastic and then close the box back up-do this over and over like 150 times!..now i see why chris is so sneaky and acts like putting up the tree and doing the lights is a huge deal-i think he's pulling my leg and acting like its a big deal so i won't want to trade jobs with him....well 3 1/2 hours later the tree was decorated (i still have one more crate downstairs that i have not put on the tree yet)

I am contemplating putting up the rest of the ornaments-there is still a little bit of room on the tree! But I am most excited because I ordered new stockings this year and I think that they are so cute!

I think we're about ready for good old St. Nick to come on down that chimney! Hope you all had a great Turkey Day!