Thanksgiving!

Grab a cup of coffee. This post is going to be SUPER long!

We had such a fun Thanksgiving holiday and four day weekend! I was in charge of more than just rolls and sweet tea this year! Along with my grandmother’s famous Cranberry Salad and my mom’s famous mac and cheese, I was assigned a potato dish. After much pinteresting I finally decided on the Twice Baked Potato Bake.

That’s a pan full of potato and sour cream deliciousness, people. 

We had Thanksgiving lunch with my family at my sister’s house. I even brought my big girl camera!

Noah and my favorite niece, Reece!

How cute are they? And since we were on a picture taking roll with my good camera, we tried to get a cousin picture. But the big cousins thought that was a super lame idea.

We all stuffed our faces and I forgot to take any more pictures. Oops!

After lunch, Noah and I went home to take a nap while Daddy took some more food over to his family’s house.

After Noah woke up, we joined Daddy for some more food over at his parent’s house. THEN Daddy left us at 5pm to go Black Friday shopping and didn’t get home until 3am on Friday! That man is crazy about getting a good deal! More power to him if it saves us money and I don’t have to do it!

I decided last Wednesday that I was going on a diet again. I know, I know. I let loose on Thanksgiving, though, believe me! Anyway, I needed to go to the grocery store to get some fruits and vegetables.

 

And some pretzels for Noah!

And some chapstick for me. That’s priority #1!

I’ve already lost almost 2 pounds and it hasn’t even been a week AND Thanksgiving was thrown into the mix. I’m pretty proud of myself! Hopefully I’ll be able to stick with it this time.     

So we pulled out our Elf on the Shelf over the weekend and read the book to Noah and asked him what he wanted the elf’s name to be. He said, “Ummm…….Joey!” Excuse me? Joey? We don’t even know a Joey. Where did he come up with that?!?! I wanted a fun Christmasy name like Sprinkles or Dazzle or something other than Joey! But Noah LOVES Joey so much and loves looking for him every day and then repeatedly saying, “I see Joey!! I see Joey!!” all.day.long. :)

And finally, I wasn’t going to post anything on the blog about this, but then I decided that I might want the documentation later on. Sometime around the beginning of October I started having random joint pain in my wrists and in my shoulder blades. At first, I thought that I was just sleeping funny. When the pain persisted and started to hurt my feet, I thought that I might have had some kind of vitamin deficiency so I started taking a daily multivitamin. The pain persisted and got worse. All of my joints were hurting and it even hurt to walk. So I decided to go to a doc-in-the-box to get some blood work drawn. I have every kind of health problem in my family so I wanted to get it checked out. They took ELEVEN vials of blood. I cannot believe I didn’t pass out! Those results came back and I had an elevated sed. rate of 50 (it shouldn’t have been more than 20) and my ANA (anti-nuclear antibodies; the cells that attack good cells) was positive. So the doctor referred me to a rheumatologist. I went to see the rheumy last week. After a three hour visit with him, he pretty much decided that I have lupus. My grandmother had it and it was eventually what killed her. Luckily though, the doctor said that since my grandmother had such a severe case of lupus, mine will not be as bad. He ordered some more blood work and I go back to see him tomorrow to find out the results and officially get my diagnosis of lupus, if the blood work comes back like he thinks it will. He will then put me on some medication that has some rough side effects…not looking forward to that. And hopefully it will help with my joint paint, lack of energy, dizziness and nausea that I’ve been having to deal with.

Not to end the post as a Debbie Downer, though! I am very optimistic and feel fine most days. I’m just ready to move forward and march on!

“Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise!” Jeremiah 17:14