Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

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I am getting ready for Thanksgiving here. This is the first year that I am hosting and cooking the majority of the food! Yipes! I am looking forward to it though. My sister and her fiance` are coming from Houston, and my grandparents from Oklahoma are coming. Of course my sister that lives here will be here, but that is all. My parents are of course working out of town and can't get enough time off to come, so that is how it fell on me. We won't have many people here, but there will be enough to fill a table and eat some turkey so it will be fun.
I have almost all of the grocery shopping done, just lacking those last minute things that won't stay fresh long enough to buy them ahead of time.

The girls and I put up the Christmas tree last night. I know it's early, I don't usually put it up this early, but I kinda wanted it up when everybody is here for Thanksgiving, and I decided I didn't want to try to do it while they were all here so....I had a good evening to do it, so that is what I did.
Natalie LOVES it. She just looks at it and says "Wow, pretty colors! Pretty lights." She probably hung 90% of the ornaments on it, she thought it was so fun! She keeps saying "Mommy, nother one!" (wanting to hang another ornament on) She doesn't really mess with it at all now, aside from admiring it. I think her helping to put it up helps with that. Surprisingly, Gabbie hasn't messed with it yet today, so maybe I won't have any trouble with her either.
We have also brought out the Christmas music and Veggie Tales. Natalie loves the Christmas Veggie Tales! She watches them over and over and over and....You get the point. She and Gabbie both really loved a Trans Siberian Orchestra song that I had playing the other day.
I am really excited for Christmas this year. Natalie is old enough to really get into it, and Gabbie will almost be 1, so she will have lots of fun as well, even though she doesn't understand as well. I am starting it early, but I figure it makes up for last year. Between moving a few days before Thanksgiving, and being 9 months pregnant at Christmas I didn't really get to enjoy the holidays as much as I like to. So this year I am going all in! One of my very favorite things is having all the lights off except for the glow of the Christmas tree. It is so pretty and peaceful.

I am pretty much done with all of my Christmas shopping too. I have been buying things a little at a time for over a month now, so it didn't all hit us in one month. Pretty much all I have left is the little stocking stuffer stuff. I won't be able to put anything under the tree until right before though. I know I won't be able to keep the girls out of that!
Tony and I have already done our gift for each other as well. We got a Wii several weeks ago, so we have already been enjoying our Christmas!

Natalie's medicine seems to be working, she is eating a lot more, and I even had to let the waist of her adjustable jeans out a little bit! Yay! She goes to the Dr on Tuesday so we will see what she says.
She can count to 15 now! She has known all her shapes, colors and the alphabet for several months now. She is getting so big!

Gabbie has 3 teeth now, and the 4th is coming through any day now. She can stand alone for a long time, and the other night she took 2 steps all by herself! We were excited. I think she still has a little while before she does much walking on her own, but she sure is trying hard. I think she may have it down by Christmas. She loves music as much as Natalie does. She waves her arms around to the beat of the music anytime she hears it. She was up in the middle of the night the other night and Tony started singing to her. She stopped crying and started waving her arms all around dancing to his song!

Gabbie is up from her nap now so it is time for me to run. I probably won't get around to posting again before Thanksgiving so, Happy Thanksgiving! Remember what the day is all about what you have to be thankful for. I am thankful that gas is $1.73!!!!(aside from the obvious things, my family and health and all those kind of things,of course ) That is making a BIG difference for us.