Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Thanksgiving!

We had a very nice Thanksgiving! We have so much to be thankful for. We have two very healthy and happy kids! We have an amazing family that supports us every day! We were blessed to have two Thanksgivings this year. Our first one was at my parents house and our second one was at my Aunt Donna's house! We were blessed to see al ot of our extended family. One very important person that was missing in person, but I know was there in spirit was my Papa. I know this has been very hard for Nana as it should be. The first holidays are always so tough. I swear he was there though! I just wish he would have just walked in the door to give us all hugs! Somedays it still feels like a VERY bad dream and I just want to wake up! Anyway here are some pictures I managed to capture from this day!








Sunday, November 18, 2012

Fun Times

I usually post on here updates and pictures of the kids, but I thought why not have some updates/pictures that doesn't include the kids. So my mom, sisters and I started a fun tradition, thanks to Jay about getting together just us girls to go to dinner, see a movie or just hang out. So since my sister Katie is in Italy, my mom and my sister Emily and still try to keep up the tradition.




In October my mom and I took the train to spend the day and night with Emily. It was a lot of fun. Bryan even surprised my mom and me and joined us for dinner. I am very blessed that I am able to spend this time with my family. This really helps me when I just need a night out. Here are some pictures from our fun time!

Addison lost her tooth!!!

So some big news that happened this past week in our house was that our Addison lost her very first tooth!!! I just can not believe it!!! She said she was very brave! She lost it while she was at lunch!
She is getting so big!!!

November 18...Today I am Thankful....

Today on the 18th I am Thankful for many things, but I have to say today on the 18th that I am thankful for how close I was to my Papa and still close to my Nana. I have been so blessed that even as I was growing up, my parents always made it a point to see our extended family. I love the days when we were younger and got together with our cousins on a regular basis. My siblings and I were blessed with many, many cousins and we are all close in age which made these get togethers so fun! We really looked forward to those times.

Another thing I always loved doing was going to visit both sets of grandparents. My Muz and Boppa passed away too soon, but till this day I remember walking into their house in Dekalb, always looking down at the basement first since it was right there when we walked in. I was always fascinated by that basement, it was just so cool!  I loved just the feel of their house. I love how it was decorated! My siblings and I also loved playing in the backyard, we always pretended we were really somewhere else because of how the backyard was laid out.  The first thing we would see is Muz, my grandma sitting on the couch. She was always excited to see us. Boppa sometimes was in the basement or sitting at his desk in the family room. The sounds were of course the Grandfather clock which is in my parents house today. I am so blessed that my own kids get to hear that same sounds that my siblings and I remember from being at Muz and Boppa's house. It is such a comforting sound. We used to have Christmas Eve at their house a long time ago, but I still remember Muz's tree and just how very beautiful, classy Muz's tree was. She had style that is for sure, even though I was a lot younger back then I do remember her style!  I would say that they had a lot more breakable things than my other grandparents place. I can just imagine Austen running around that living/dining room at their house probably because Boppa was chasing him or making him laugh. I would of course be nervous that Austen would break something valuable. My kids would have loved to have met them. Boppa's laugh that was just contagious and even though Muz was a lot more calmer than him, she had the best and loving hugs. 

Nana and Papa's house in Sycamore was just as special. We loved visiting that house. We would walk in and Papa would most likely be there sitting in his chair, feeding his fish or his birds. We would always be welcomed with big smiles and even bigger hugs! Papa would have us see his fish tank because more than likely he had just gotten something new.  The sounds coming from that house were sbirds chirping, radio on, and clocks going tick/tock. Nana always would ask us like she does today if we are hungry or needed something to eat. I know I would always like to just explore the house and look at what new things they had out. I know we never wanted to leave just how my kids are when we go to Nonna and Grandpa's house. 

So three months have passed and with Thanksgiving being next week I have to say how Thankful and blessed I am that I had my grandparents in my life. I know many people who never knew their grandparents or just were not close to them. I am blessed, as well as my siblings to have so many, wonderful memories with BOTH sets of grandparents! Even though my own kids did not get the blessing to have met Muz and Boppa, I know that they are always watching over them.  I am pretty convinced that when both of my kids were babies Boppa made them laugh a couple times or two. I would catch them looking off and just giggling out loud. The kind of giggle that could only be from a funny joke, or funny face from Boppa.

As the days, months go by now I miss Papa so much every day. I get so angry sometimes and just want him here with us now. I try to find comfort that he is with us and when I start crying he says will you stop that crying you are going to flood us all. I am just so blessed that my kids were so close to him and we got to see him every week. I can only think that when Addison lost her first tooth this week she would have gone right over to tell him all about. He would make a joke about her green bow and then try to take Austen's drink. When I was over at Nana's on Friday, she had put up a couple of Christmas items and  a Christmas blanket on Papa's chair. I just had to sit in his chair to feel close to him. I just know he was there watching us and wonder what we were talking about or if we were talking about him. I swear whenever I was there with the kids he did not care what the adults were talking about it, it was all about those kids. His focus was on them 100%, how special is that!



I know I haven't posted in awhile, it has been hard for me to keep up and also just didn't know what to say. I hope my recent post makes everyone really feel blessed and thankful for all you have. I know at times I think life really sucks for losing someone so close, but I have to feel blessed that I was so close to Papa....and clearly I was his favorite granddaughter. :)