Halfway there!

Yep! I'm 45 years old today and since I've always thought 90 would be a good "final" age, today is my halfway point. Good God, how did I ever get this old? I still feel like that 21 year old scared small-town girl who packed up all her belongings in her 1984 black Dodge Shadow and drove halfway cross country to try to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I made it in the "big city" -- spent years creating a life. Over the last 20+ years I've worked hard, made friends, gone to school, done some traveling, learned what love is, experienced loss, come to really realize the importance of family, gotten married, had a baby and created a family. Whew, I've been busy! I feel so fortunate to have had these first 45 years and I'm looking forward to the next 45! Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Holidays!

A very proud builder of his first gingerbread house! Notice the halloween pumpkin in the background -- a little holiday confusion at the Bailey house? Have a great weekend.

Holiday Preparations

Well, Thanksgiving was a blur but we had a very nice one. Christian was really into the whole "first Thanksgiving story" this year from reading books at school about it. And, he loves the fact that he is an Indian and not a pilgrim. Truely, he is a card carrying member of the Chippewa tribe as am I, but that's a whole other story. I knew when I bought this Indian costume at the Goodwill store a while back it would come in handy! I'll let the video speak for itself. It's a bit long by blog standards but very cute!

And although I'm sure Christian had a great time visiting with all his family at our Thanksgiving celebration I am pretty certain he was most excited about seeing his cousins Connor and Josh. He loves hanging out with them and they are so good about being tolerant of his youth, exuberance and excitablity. They are the closest things he's got to brothers and he loves them.

Now its all about getting ready for Christmas! Almost all the shopping is done which I'm very happy about. The cards have been mailed, the tree has been decorated and the stockings have been hung.

Our little tree

Stockings to be filled

The reason for the season

Even Gordon's getting excited

We're taking our annual drive through the Lights on the Bay display this weekend. And next weekend I'll try to get some wrapping done and start my annual baking. So far the holiday season is off to a great start. I know the economy is not so great and we certainly couldn't spend as much money as we've done in the past but we have so many other things to be thankful for. I'm going to try to get another blog in before the 25th but if for some reason I don't, Happy Holidays everyone!