Thanksgiving Week

I was thankful that dear friend Tina watched my littlest boys so I could go to Eden's class. They had a Thanksgiving feast and she and her school bestie both were polka dot clad.

Van was the only one to help me make my pie crusts. Therefore he was the only one to get to eat dough. Still, everyone got a doo-dad.   Is this just something my family does? Never mind...I googled it.

Delivered this baby quilt to a new little man, Harry! His mom was going with a Dr. Seuss theme. I wanted it to be Seussesque, without the cat in the hat all over it.

Eden found a teeny, tiny snail in mom mom's pond.

My lovely Liz, my partner in rebellion, bucked the traditional fruit cups and made a fruit turkey. The turkey is on the right, har har har.

YES! We are building a house! Yikes! It's a family project. While the littlest ones napped the rest of us waterproofed the basement walls with pitch. A messy job but someone had to do it.

Warning: Clothes were damaged in this process.

My littlest boys on a walk....love them.

Closing November

We're going to close this month with bullet points and pictures...ahem...

• visited both classes of the kids on Wednesday before T-day. J was having a class meal where he learned how to properly set the table, push in a chair for a young lady. His teacher also went around to each kid and expounded on something that he was thankful for about each student. It was really beautiful to see the kids respond. You could tell that some of these kids might never hear it at home. E's class had a feast of snacky things but the teacher changed the time of when they were going to do it so I missed it! Boo. But I still stopped in and grabbed a pic of her and her teacher who J had in first grade too. We love her!

• Thanksgiving day was cold and rainy, but still a really good day and Den's parents. I made the annual cheese ball turkey ( i don't make the cheese ball, i just turn it into a turkey), dolls joined in on the fun, and V and Joash were said to look like the E trade babies as they sat in their high chairs. We dropped into a couple other family drop ins later that night and it was so good to see everyone.

• Then on Friday I decided it was time to say goodbye to someone. I have an issue with holding on to the past. But I believe in personal growth and saying goodbye was a big step for me. Van didn't quite understand.

"Why mommy? Why?!?!?"

"Because it's time, my love. It's time"

"I still don't understand."

Goodbye James....we had some good times. I still have small mementos of you hear and there; magnets, a picture, your 3 films. But I can no longer have you cluttering my life. Farewell.

Take a moment and wipe your eyes if you need to. Okay, ready to move on?

• Friday night Den and I built the tree and put on our sad little lights. EVERY strand was only lighting up halfway. Odd. Part of me wonders if it's not our electricity. Saturday we decorated.

• Also on Saturday we had our own turkey dinner. A simple menu of turkey, stuffing, and baked sweet potatoes. We also broke out the china and the sparkling grape juice. Nothing was actually broken. The bird was beautiful and deeelish...thanks dad for the tips!

• In closing our two youngest crack us up. It's so fun to see their personalities come out when they are young. Dennis took these two pictures.

um....can you say perfect baby bum? However I must admit that I'm a little reminded of George Costanza.

Dennis said when he first saw V like this, he was snuggled up with his cheek on the Millennium Falcon. He moved while Den went to get the camera.

*this post is dedicated to my dearest Carla who gave me James many moons ago....

Post T Day

It seems like Thanksgiving was forever ago, but really only a week has past . Here are some captured moments from our festivites.


E's class at school had a "feast" of cereal.


V had a snack there too.


Waiting for everyone else to get to mom mom's house. We were the first ones there.


Annual cheeseball turkey. (yes, it's my own creation)


Forcing her into a pic w/ me.


yum


Some of our favorite people made these pilgrim hats out of marshmallows and cookies. Huge hit w/ the kids.

Happy Thanksgiving

J 4yrs old- november 2005

Happy Thanksgiving!

The kids made placecards :)

A Huge Catch Up

It's been forever since I have been able to post, so I decided to just stick a ton of pics on from Thanksgiving until now. I am working from present day and back.

E has been requesting braids and I finally gave in yesterday. Such a challenge w/ her curls, but this morning they worked out decent after I soaked her hair.


Saturday she requested that I tie on her bunny tail. Later on I went downstairs to find her in full bunny attire w/ skirt sitting next to J who said that she was his pet.


Two sundays ago was the Christmas play at church. E was an angel and J was a wiseman. He rode in on a camel's back and everything. Sadly the only pic I got of him came out dark. Luckily we recorded the event as well.





We got our tree at the same place we went to 2 yrs ago, where my manly husband chopped it down himself.



The kids were quite helpful in decorating. They were pretty good about not sticking all the ornaments in the same place.



Thank you grandma for the Nativity play set!


Look grandpa, I have my train set up!




So now we are going back to fall days. One Sat. D raked a huge pile of leaves for the kids to play in. J was not thrilled w/ the idea and later he told me that he thought it was going to be boring. As you can see they loved it. He hurled himself into the pile w/ full force (but that's how he does everything).








Thanksgiving was surprisingly warm and Uncle David was sweet enough to fire up a go cart and give rides.



So my kids actually requested the pilgrim hats for Tday. I tried to persuade them to be indians as I thought that would be easier to make, but they insisted. E wanted to be a "mommy pilgrim" and J a boy pilgrim.



E playing dollhouse w/ cousin Rowen. They are so cute together.