Hello, friends.

Hello, friends. I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and weekend. As for us, there is a lot to say.

I'm not big on holidays as it is, though Thanksgiving is one of my favorites (not because of what it celebrates [horrible things were done to the Natives, and I believe in being thankful every day], but I do like it because I don't cook yet I still get to eat a lot.) This year had a couple of extra layers of stress. Thanksgiving would have been Shaun's mom's birthday had she not passed away earlier this year, so it was rough on a few levels. Thankfully, we got through the day.

Friday was my birthday, and that is the day we started doing some house repairs because dad was free. You know you're officially an adult when replacing a floor is a wonderful gift. LOL It took 3 days; we just finished up today. The contents of Shadow's room are strewn about the house (and have been for days) so it's driving me crazy. We're about to go through it all and see what we can purge. Woo.

In other exciting news, we caught a good Black Friday sale on the web and got Kira a bed just like she wanted: black, full-size, and with drawers underneath. 😃 It will be delivered tomorrow. A few weeks ago one of our friends gave us a couple of dressers he no longer needed, so my mom and Kira spray-painted them her favorite color today. We've had her stuff in one of my closets and some of Shadow's drawers, so this will be much better. I'm super excited to get everything re-organized and put away.

In even OTHER exciting news:  Kira got braces on Tuesday. We loved her smile as it was, but she wasn't happy with it - and her opinion is the one that matters. We'd planned to do this before Emma's unexpected hospital bill, but we don't believe in breaking promises to the kids if we can avoid it at all. Thank goodness for Care Credit. We have a year with no interest, so that will help a lot.

Speaking of Emma's bill, I am so thankful to each of you who donated. I have some very generous friends and I will be thanking each of you personally ASAP. There has been so much going on lately with my mental health and with losing Emma and then all of this house stuff that I just haven't been able to keep up. I also need to thank all of you for the birthday wishes, as well as wish a couple of birthday twins a belated Happy Birthday, as well. I hope you all will forgive my behind-ness; maybe this super adorable picture of Kira will help. 😊😍❤️