A weird Thanksgiving, a Christmas parade, and Rebecca's birthday

The beginning of November was full of "Junie B. Jones" excitement but we also had lots of other fun stuff happen in November....the three events that stand out as the biggest were Thanksgiving and gearing up for the Christmas holiday season and Rebecca's 12th birthday!

We spent Thanksgiving dinner time at my parents' house. Up until a few days before Thanksgiving, we weren't even sure we were going to have a dinner as my mom didn't want to do it. There has been a lot of stress in our extended family this year. Bill and I have been having our problems. My brother moved out of his house and is now couch surfing while his wife and kids live with her mom in a 1 bedroom apartment near their school. My youngest brother and my sister are angry with my sister-in-law and with Bill. They are also having a time adjusting to their lives in grad school and college respectively.  Anyhow, back to Thanksgiving...my dad convinced my mom to have it as he said family should be together for Thanksgiving. I had to convince my brother to come as he said my dad didn't want him there. Fun times...NOT!

Anyway...I offered to pick my brother up from where he was staying as he didn't have a car. So we did that. My dad picked up my sister-in-law and the kids so they were there when we arrived. My niece and nephews were so happy to see their dad. My youngest brother's girlfriend was there and she was being annoying...bothering my kids and teasing them. She wouldn't leave Ben alone. It was weird and there was a lot of tension in the air at first. Then it kind of settled and we had a nice dinner.

After dinner, we celebrated our nephew Ethan's birthday (which we missed due to family drama), Rebecca's upcoming birthday and my niece Lacie's upcoming birthday with cake and a brownie and presents. (The thing that struck me the most was the Lacie and Ethan seemed really upset that my parents got them clothes as gifts and they were vocal about not liking them, whereas Rebecca was excited to get jeans and a llama shirt. I was proud of her for enjoying her gifts.)

Then it was time for my mom to "command" that pictures be taken. LOL

 I could feel the tension rising again so we packed up and headed out. I took my brother back to where he was staying and we headed home as Bill had to work the next day.

That weekend we started decorating our house for Christmas, which I will share when we get done. We are doing it slowly and in little snippets of time that we have. We also all got ready to walk in our town's annual Christmas parade. The weather that day was amazing... sunny and in the high 40s/low 50s. We were all in the parade this year. Rebecca and I were walking with her American Heritage Girls troop. (Their parade entry won best youth organization!) Jacob and Ben got to ride in the back of a pick up truck for their Trail Life USA troop. And Bill got to hand out oranges for and walk with his current employer. Speaking of employers...Bill also found out as the parade was beginning that his former boss (the editor of the local paper who bullied Bill and caused his life to be utterly miserable had been fired a few weeks before that! So that made him feel a little better.) Overall, it was a lovely afternoon.

That led us up to Rebecca's 12th birthday on the 28th. I felt bad because I didn't do a birthday post on here like I typically do, but everything about this year has been different. Rebecca had a nice birthday day.  I made here zucchini bread for breakfast before school as she LOVES zucchini bread and she got to play on her phone before school as there was a 2 hour delay due to snow. Then after school we went to China buffet for dinner as that was her choice. Then home to have presents and a birthday brownie. She loves to make crafts out of duct tape and so she loved the duct tape from her brothers and her "Book of Mythicality" from us.

Thus ended our November. It started out super busy and ended super busy but with some good memories made in there. Life isn't perfect, but we are trying to take it day to day.