Thanksgiving

Nate thinks that I don’t need to type a Thanksgiving post because I “did it last year and all Thanksgivings are pretty much the same.” I told him that I think there’s an unwritten rule that all holidays have to be blogged, and I don’t want to break the rules. So, here goes:

We had two Thanksgiving dinners this year. We were planning on going to Nate’s parents’ around noon like we’ve always done, but Nate’s mom let us know Wednesday night that dinner would be at 5:30 this year. Despite the short notice, the change in plans ended up working out for the best. In the past Jody and Kevin have taken my mom with them to Kevin’s parents’ house in Idaho on the in-law years. Both of Kevin’s parents passed away this year, so Jody was just planning on having a mini-Thanksgiving (sans turkey!) at their house with my mom. Since we already had a turkey thawing, we decided to just throw the rest of a dinner together and have them come here. The food was great (Nate cooked the turkey to perfection this year) and it was fun to have them here. After dinner, we played a couple of games, I made a plaster death mask of Jody’s face (don’t ask), and we had pie. Then we headed up to Nate’s parents for round two. We managed to eat more food and more pie and had fun hanging out with his siblings. Mostly I was relieved that my kids didn’t break any of the fine china. It caused me quite a bit of anxiety to see them carrying their plates back and forth from the kitchen to the table.

Abby was sick and spent most of the day feeling miserable. Poor kid. She did have a few happy moments mixed in.

I was so tired by the end of the day that I decided to break our long-standing tradition and bag Black Friday all together. I did get a few good deals online, but there was just nothing worth getting out of bed at 4:00 a.m. for. I’m getting old. Instead, we spent the day decorating for Christmas. The kids were lots more helpful this year and once we had the heavy lifting done, we pretty much just let them have at it. They took turns being grumpy and whining, but we eventually got things done. You can certainly tell that our tree was decorated by the 8 and under crowd, but we’re fine with that. I tried to be brave and help Nate put the Christmas lights on the house. I’m deathly afraid of heights, but it sounded like fun to hang out with him on the roof. It wasn’t fun. I only made it through one string of lights before I chickened out and headed to solid ground.

Communist Bakery Aprons

I finally finished this little project I started in October (of 2008). I wanted to make the kids some heavy duty aprons to use when they were helping with dinner or making treats. I went in search of some white canvas on the dollar-a-yard table at Wal-Mart. I found exactly the type of fabric I wanted, but it was grey. I decided to go with cheap and durable over pricey and cute. We ended up with a family set of what I affectionately refer to as communist bakery aprons. Drab grey just screams 1968 Czechoslovakia to me.


The picture isn’t totally staged . . . Ben and Elise really were helping me make cookies . . . I just made the other three throw their aprons on too.

2009 Gratitude Turkey

We had our traditional Thanksgiving family home evening last night. We watched a quality church produced video on youtube before we made our turkey. The rule this year was no repeats. It is always fun for me to see what the kids think of.

My intent was to give everyone their own color so we would remember who said what, but I completely forgot about that when I started writing. Instead, I made a little list so I can remember.

Abby: toys, bed, teddy bear, teddy grahams, Heidi blanket, milk cup

Elise: family, Heavenly Father and Jesus, going to church, clothes, Joseph Smith, Thanksgiving

Emily: friends, Earth, warm house, food, plants, art stuff

Ben: neighbors, kids, video games, legos, back lot, books

Malinda: laptop computers, movie room, good teachers, eggnog, Nate’s job, thunderstorms

Nate: cars that work, indoor bathrooms, healthy bodies, scriptures, chocolate, temples

I love that once the kids got going, there was no stopping them. After all the feathers were used up they just kept spouting out more ideas (most notably “that dinosaurs are extinct so they can’t eat us”). We are a very blessed family. It is good to remember that.

Shelley's Wedding

Nate’s sister Shelley got married on Friday. It was a nice ceremony. It was kind of cool to be in a sealing room in the Salt Lake Temple again. It brought back lots of memories from our wedding day. After the ceremony and pictures, we took advantage of being kid free and had a middle-of-the-day date. Nothing special, just lunch and some shopping, but it was fun to spend the day together.

The kids had a great time at the reception. The girls loved twirling around in their flower girl dresses. They spent most of the night dancing with each other and with their cousins Zack and Austin. Ben spent his time eating (and eating and eating) and wandering around engaging in conversations with total strangers. Sometimes I wonder if he is really my child. We have completely opposite personalities when it comes to social events. I’m content to hang out in the corner and people watch; he wants to be right in the thick of things.

This and That

I’ve kind of fallen off the blog wagon during the last couple of weeks. Here’s a quick post short novel to document some of the noteworthy happenings of the last few weeks.

Fieldtrips:

Elise had a fieldtrip to the fire department. It was a “parents optional” event, so I opted out. I showed up just in time to take a picture of her in her cute hat. She and Natalie talked over each other the whole way home telling me about the movie with the grandma that almost died and the little boy that called 911 (or 991 depending on who you ask). They were both very excited about that little part of their trip.

Nate went with Ben on his latest fieldtrip. They started out the day with bowling. Nate barely managed to outscore those third grade boys (he blames the bumpers for his poor performance). Then they took a tour of the Standard Examiner. Nate was slightly irritated with the newspaper staff’s quiet speaking voices and lack of knowledge (i.e. Tour guide: “Guess how long this roll of paper is?” Students: “300 feet.” “2 miles.” “1000 feet.” Tour guide: “I don’t know exactly, but it is really long.”) They were supposed to finish off the day with a nutrition lesson at Lee’s Market, but their tour was cancelled due to illness. They had a fun day together. I’m glad that Nate gets to share the joy of fieldtrips.

It was my turn to go with Elise to her Treehouse Museum fieldtrip (Nate hates the Treehouse). Once she got over her disappointment of me staying, we had a good day (Kylie’s and Natalie’s moms didn’t stay, so she didn’t see why her mom had to stay . . . I try not to take it personally; she’s just very independent). She got to play a goat in “Three Billy Goats Gruff” and I think we hit every display in the place in the hour and a half that we were there. Abby had a great time hanging out with the big kids. She would follow Elise and her friends from one thing to another saying “I coming; wait for me guys.”

Reflections:

Ben’s teacher required all of her students to do a reflections project. Ben was not thrilled. He eventually came to terms with the idea and did two entries, one in photography and one in literature. Emily thought it looked like fun and wanted to do a project too. She ended up doing three: photography, literature, and visual arts. They gave medals to all of the kids that participated. Ben threw his in his backpack and never mentioned them. Emily, on the other hand, came home from school with all three medals jingling around her neck and a big smile on her face. She earned honorable mentions in photography and literature. She was very excited about the whole thing and is already talking about all the things she wants to do next year.

Wedding:

My nephew Jeremy got married on November 5th. Chantelle is a super cute girl and we are excited to have her as part of the family.

Little Chef:

Abby loves being a grown up. Nate let her help with dinner the other night and she couldn’t stop grinning. We sure love that little girl!

Babysitting Swap:

We started a little babysitting exchange with some friends in our ward. Their kids are the exact same ages as ours and they get along great together. Our kids get as excited for our date nights as we do.

Piano:

Emily started piano lessons in September. She is doing great. It is amazing to see how different her learning style is from Ben’s. She is very much a sight-reader and can usually sit down with a new piece and play it through just following the notes. In the last couple of weeks she’s mastered the primer versions of Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. She loves playing them over and over.

Winter Weather:

We had a little snow storm on Saturday. The kids were excited to get in their snow gear and play, but they didn’t last long. It was windy and they didn’t love the snow blowing in their faces. They were happy to come in and warm up with some hot chocolate.

New Toy:

Merry Christmas to me! I got a laptop last week as an early Christmas present. We’ve been waiting a long time to get a laptop, but there were other things higher on our priority list. A good deal finally came around at just the right time and we went for it. I absolutely love it!

Retro Post - Halloween

1998 – Nate and I went on our first date on Halloween. I was a doctor and he was an injured terrorist. He made himself cool gloves with chicken bones and fake blood. The picture is a scan of a color copy, and I’m a little bugged with my double chin and the fact that you can see the gum in my mouth. Still, it’s fun to see where it all started.

1999 – I guess we didn’t take a lot of pictures before we had kids. This was the only one I could find with either of us. Apparently we dressed up like army guys and went to a party at Holly’s house.

2000 – Nate looks SO YOUNG in this picture (and has a whole lot of hair!). I was seven months pregnant with Ben.

2001 – Our first Halloween with kids. I was so excited to make Ben’s costume and had it done two months ahead of time. What happened to that girl that was so on top of things?

2002 – We moved into our new house five days before Halloween. Ben was almost two and was not about to sit still for a picture with his little sister. Emily was just cute and tiny. I love the picture of the kids with their cousins. It’s fun to see how much they have all grown up since then.

2003 – We were going for the cat and mouse theme . . . a leopard is technically a cat.

2004 – Ben was obsessed with Shrek, so I had to make his costume. The girls were too young to have opinions, so we just recycled some old costumes.

2005 – Ben was going to be a fireman this year until our neighbor across the street brought over her son’s old dinosaur costume. It was at the height of Ben’s dinosaur phase and he was in love. Emily was all about princesses and wanted to be Cinderella. I was worried about Elise feeling bad when she was older that she always had hand-me-down costumes, so I bought her a penguin costume instead of having her wear the mouse one. Sometimes I worry about silly things.

The first picture is from when we took the kids on the Heber Creeper's Haunted Canyon ride. Ben was so excited about going, but was sick that day (aka, threw up in the car on the way down). That’s why he looks so sad.

2006 – It is crazy to see all three kids when they still had some baby fat. I love their squishy, round cheeks.

2007 – This marks the beginning of the girls’ love of Barbie princesses and Ben’s love of superheroes/video games.

2008 – Our first (and possibly last) full family theme year.

Halloween

We had a fun few days celebrating Halloween.

Thursday was Elise’s preschool party. Abby and I went over to help the kids make a little craft project and do a trunk-or-treat. The girls were excited to finally get to wear their costumes and had lots of fun.

Ben and Emily had their school parties on Friday. Nate took the day off and we all headed over to the school in the morning for the parade. Then I stayed to help with the first grade party. Elise had a fieldtrip scheduled at the Punkinaze that afternoon, but since it was snowing I talked her out of it. Instead we rented the new Tinkerbell movie from redbox for her and Abby. Everyone was happy.

Friday night was our family party. We played some of the kids’ favorite Halloween games and added a few new twists with a balloon stomp, black lights, and cool prizes from Aunt Jody. It was great fun.

We carved pumpkins on Saturday morning. The kids were all really great about doing their own (with a little help from me and Nate). Abby was surprisingly happy about reaching in and pulling out the seeds and guts. I don’t think any of our other kids would touch the stuff at that age.

We had mummy dogs* for lunch and then took the kids to Lee’s for some trick-or-treating. Nate let me take a nap when we got home while he played with the kids in the backyard. They shot slingshot rockets, launched Ben’s spinner helicopter, jumped on the trampoline, and had sword fights. We had jack-o-lantern quesadillas* for dinner and then got ready for trick-or-treating. Nate took the kids around our neighborhood while I passed out candy; then we switched and I took them to a few more houses in our ward. The weather was perfect and the kids had loads of fun. We would have stayed out longer, but Ben had a stomachache. I kept telling him that we could go home, but he would say/groan “I’ll be okay; I don’t want to miss out on any of the fun.” The kids ended up with TONS of candy. My job is going to be to police Elise’s treat intake. Hers will be gone in four days unless I impose some serious rationing.

Nate and I were slackers this year and didn’t even dress up. We were planning on being Star Trek guys with our “free with 9 tokens” shirts from Kellogg’s, but they didn’t arrive in time. Maybe next year.

*Food ideas courtesy of Amity. Thanks!