Happy sigh.

Whew. Went silent there for a bit, didn't I? ;) 

Well, rest assured that we're all still here and doing just dandy. Just enjoying a much needed week off. ;) We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving...just us and a lovely little meal that Nathan made:

We had a petite turkey, a skillet of cornbread, a sweet potato casserole, cranberry pomegranate sauce, pomegranates, mashed potatoes and (for those of us over 21) a lovely apple cider sangria that we tried out for the first time. We also watched "Brave" (so beautiful to watch, though Micah declared the male bear too scary, lol) and continued our annual tradition of watching Punkin Chunkin' on tv. Perfect. :)

Black Friday dawned without us scurrying out to hit the sales, save the one at Karate West where we dropped some dough on new sparring gear for Micah (who will graduate to a high enough belt to start sparring within the month or so), new pants for Asher and some Christmas presents for both (that I managed to order while they were "trying out" the sparring gear, lol). 

While I had the younger two at Karate West trying to find sparring boots that would fit Micah's fat feet, lol, Nathan took Noah over to Rocky Mountain Archery where Noah was scouting out things for his own Christmas list. It was one of about four times we've been in there in the past week...mostly to practice and tweak things for the upcoming tournament and also so that Asher could let the coach know that he's needing to take a sabbatical from JOAD for awhile, as he's just not enjoying the tournaments and competition like his brothers and is feeling busy enough with his additional karate stuff. (He still intends to go to the range with his brothers weekly-ish, as he still loves shooting...just not at tournaments.)

Saturday, we actually got our holiday decorations out and up, with the exception of the tree, which we'll wait on for another couple weeks to ensure it'll still be fresh at Christmas. The younger two decked themselves out:

and helped mostly by staying out of the way (whilst battling each other in the front yard with pool noodles, of course). Noah, meanwhile, helped test all the strands of lights and even hang some of them:

And, amidst all that, we even managed to get most of our holiday shopping sorted out and ordered. Woohoo! Whew. Feeling ahead of the holiday curve for a change. But, don't worry. I'm sure that will change any minute now, lol. ;)