Holidays

We got to spend Halloween this year in Hamilton. I wanted to be able to capture some pictures with his cousins, who also got dressed up on Halloween night to travel from door to door yelling...Trick or Treat!! How fun...now with that being said growing up I HATED HATED HATED Halloween. The idea of getting dressed up and actually going to ask someone you really didn't know for something horrified me. So-I inevitably would stay inside the car and allow my brother and sister to trick or treat for me. One year I was made to dress up like a clown (which I despise-b/c my brother and sister used to put me in a closet at my grandparents house and throw this clown (that looked SOOOO scary and laughed sooo mean )in on me all while it was chuckling its evilness. Needless to say this Halloween I was made to dress like a clown I broke out into a rash and got SUPER sick and cried and cried and cried. So this year I planned to attempt to like Halloween for Tristin and thought with the help of my sisters that I could get through the holiday. I survived-even though a rode around in the car with Tristin and we stopped at 3 houses. The kids had already gone up and down a street when they came to pick me up-so no worries :). I forgot my camera that night, and haven't gotten them from my sister yet, but when I do will post with all the kidos!!! These are just for fun pics, even though Tristin didn't have much fun taking them..hehe.

He has a hat for every Holiday this year-so here is to hat number 1!!

He was the cutest football ever..haha!

Now on to more Holiday thoughts and questions....please chime in

I knew the Holiday traveling scenario would one day come up-and even though we've had things planned I knew once again-things would surface and complications arise. Where do you spend your holidays?

When is going from one family to another tooo much? I hate driving, and with an almost two-month old-I don't anticipate driving and packing around all of our stuff very exciting for this upcoming Thanksgiving. This past year Kevin's family decided to do something small-which is wonderful for his family-and my family for years has either spent time in Anson,having Christmas with my moms side of the family or in Hamilton with my dads side. This always intrigued Kevin-going to my house-b/c he could hunt with my brother-so knocking out two birds with one stone is always the route to go I think. So when do we say we are rotating thanksgivings, or just skipping a thanksgiving, because driving in a car for and hour and a half one way then three hours another is TOOOO much for me to pack and un pack and well I feel like a circus already.

The next topic Christmas....for the past 7 years we've continued to have Christmas on Christmas day with my brothers and sisters because we didn't think it was fair for Dillan to get his Christmas shanked since we were all grown up. Its worked out nice-but has always been hectic and left us super tired from all the driving..youll see below. When Kevin and I talked about having a family I stated how important it was for me to have xmas eve and xmas morning at OUR house with OUR kids. This time of the year was always so special to my family and I wanted to keep up the fun traditions. He agreed, since he defiantly knows how much I love this holiday.

Kevin's family does xmas a little different. Now his parents are open to any day of the week, while his grandparents have had dibs on xmas eve and xmas morning. Looking at his family I can see how this worked. They all live within a few miles of one another and if they wanted to have xmas morning at their house, or do something special for xmas eve, they could arrange both b/c they don't have a lot of driving involved, being 20 min. at the most. This unfortunately isn't going to work for us, since we've started our family-because we live hours from his. It will always work for his immediate family,but for those who are venturing away from the likes of LaGrange, too bad so sad.

This then brings me to this year-I totally understand Tristin isn't going to remember or know where we spent xmas eve or xmas day at-but when do you say enough is enough...Our days would run like this...Kevin's parents xmas eve day, Kevin's moms parents xmas eve,Kevin's dads parents xmas lunch-pack up a child who has been held way too much,and is cranky, drive three hours to spend xmas day evening with my dad, little brother and family, next afternoon mom's xmas, then xmas with my grandparents the following day.....YIKES!!! And we don't get to start our traditions this year, which yes I can get over, but I'm so excited and want to start them up already. So when do you plan your move away from holidays? When is dragging your family around turn into not being fun and being more of a showcase?

I thought for the sake of things we should just reserve his family for the weekend before any my family for the time/weekend after xmas-giving us xmas eve and morning to spend together. And starting it this year would solve a lot of stress!!!