What is after Thanksgiving???

Of course, it is Christmas, but not until we celebrate Katie's birthday first. We did however manage to put up the Christmas tree on Thanksgiving Day weekend, despite all of our travels. Since Katie's birthday is the weekend after Thanksgiving (usually) we have to do it that weekend or it is just too much. I did not get very many good pictures of putting up the tree because it went up too fast. With all of the help (a lot of improvement of the help that we had last year) and the new help, it went up faster than I could get the camera out. When I did get it out, I had trouble getting the lighting right. I don't know if Coy knows what to make of the Christmas tree or not but he is definitely a big fan of the train that goes around the bottom of the tree.

This has been a week of celebration for Katie. We had her birthday with the Yankey family on Thanksgiving weekend and then the Ferguson side of the family came up through the week this past week to help celebrate. Katie also had a couple of friends over today (Saturday) for a couple of hours to play and do some crafty stuff. Caleb went to a movie with a friend but Coy and I stayed with the girls. He got right in on the crafts that involved food (cup-cakes and gingerbread men).

Coy is fond of shoes. I don't know what it is but he really enjoys putting on shoes that don't belong to him. My guess is that he is trying to make us laugh and it usually does. He will probably regret this picture in Katie's shoes some day.

Below is the scene at bedtime at our house. Unfortunately, I was out of town all week with work so I did not get to see this scene at all. I feel sorry for folks whose jobs take them away from their families on a regular basis. But I really feel sorry for the folks that are left behind

to run the house with one of their sets of hands tied behind their backs. I know it takes a toll on Stacey while I am gone. Fortunately, both sets of Grandparents came up to help break up the week but I know it is still hard to keep the peace alone for the week.

I don't know when, or if, we will make it to go see Santa. Neither Caleb nor Katie have ever been a big fan of Santa and Coy has not really shown any real affection for adults in costumes so we will have to see. Of course, Coy has no idea about Santa and it is not really a topic that we discuss much at our house. We will probably end up walking past Santa at the mall some afternoon to gauge whether or not to try it but I am guessing that ours will be a letter, or e-mail, campaign to that guy.