Giving Thanks

The past ten days have been so nice.  We've been preparing for Thanksgiving.  This year, I started a new tradition- our Gratitude Garland.  We started by printing leaf outlines onto some paper.  Then I let the kids use sponges to paint them fall colors.  After they dried and were cut out, we wrote things that we were thankful for on them.  It was a lot of fun.  We left some blank so we could write in them when the gratitude struck us.  It was easy to tell who belonged to each leaf when they said things like "my ninjago box", "battleship", "photography", "Grace", and "snuggle time with mom".


Last Friday, the big kids were out of school, but Aunt Jessica still had to work so I got to entertain five children for half a day.  Luckily, I had a stash of Thanksgiving crafts ready to try.




Later that day, Charlie's aforementioned Ninjago box transformed into this.  He was quite grateful.


Morgan has been watching Sesame Street clips on the computer in the loft.  For reasons unbeknownst to me, she is a big fan of Bert.


Last Saturday Mark and I decided to treat the kids to McDonald's breakfast.


We then went to the verizon store to upgrade my phone.  I have never owned a smart phone, or anything close, so this was quite a jump for me.  I've only had it for about a week but so far I like it quite a bit.  I did tell the kids that there was a reason I hadn't bought a phone like this and to remind me if I turn into one of those people whose eyes are always on their phone.


On Sunday night, I was quite tired and Taylor said "don't worry, mom.  We only have two days of school this week and then we are off for 5 days."  It was very cute, because she did not realize that a break for her does not always equate to a break for mom.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Still the three kids did great together for their five day weekend.


My Aunt Jan finally got me to try Pinterest and I'm glad she did.  In addition to our gratitude garland, we also made these cute little cookies that I found on the site.


Charlie had a Thanksgiving Feast at preschool which Morgan and I were able to attend.






Taylor has found a new favorite activity.  She's always enjoyed reading, but she has now reached a level that allows her to read big girl books with ease.  I can't articulate how proud and happy it makes me to see this.




Last Wednesday, Mark decided to celebrate my birthday early.  My sister and brother-in-law graciously agreed to keep all three kids overnight so we could go to dinner and a concert.  It was a wonderful night out and inspired us to reinstate our monthly date nights.  My sister and I are going to alternate months while the other keeps the kids for a sleepover.  I am very excited about this.


Finally Thanksgiving arrived.  We began by watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.


The kids enjoyed seeing some of their favorite characters, but did not make it through the whole parade before losing interest.  Maybe next year.


We started our celebration at my sister's house.  I coerced the family into one group shot upon arrival.


There was quite the spread of delicious food.


Coupled with good company.




After dinner, the girls organized a show.


The kids had prepared a short play the friday before when they were all at my house.  I was so impressed by it that I encouraged them to perform it on Thanksgiving.  It was adorable.


Then my mom and Charlie did a dance number and Morgan and I sang "If You're Thankful and You Know It".


No family talent show is complete without "Pracilla".


Finally, the girls had spent the entire day tracing everyone's handprints and numbering them.  Next came the contest of guessing who each one belonged to.


Next, we traveled to Grandpa's house to celebrate a Williams Thanksgiving, which meant more good food, good company, and this year, two baby showers, too!  I ran out of steam a bit, and did not get any photographs there.  I will do better on Christmas.

Following Thanksgiving we had three more full days with no school or work obligations.  I guess Taylor was getting a little bored, because I found Charlie dressed up like this on Friday.




For the past twenty years, the Saturday after Thanksgiving has meant one thing- my mom's craft show. Her show has grown over the years and her combination of high quality items and low prices has created quite the following.  Many people come every year, getting there as soon as the doors open, to complete their christmas shopping.  Luckily she has an army of helpers.


Finally on Sunday I got to put up my Christmas tree.  The kids were big helpers and loved seeing all of their ornaments.








Oh, and did I mention that Sunday was also my birthday?


Honestly, I feel like the luckiest mom/aunt/wife/sister/daughter on earth!

Snippets from our last two weeks

I'm going to try to be quick today.  So here it goes.

The kids are getting ready for the holidays!  I've let them peruse toy catalogs.  If something is very expensive, Charlie just says "we'll save that one for Santa".


Little Morgan was very preoccupied with her Halloween candy for a few days.  Once I moved it out of sight, the obsession subsided, thankfully.


I just had to include this photo because I notice she sits like this a lot, with her little feet crossed.


I took the big kids to Entertrainment Junction and we had a great time as usual.  Charlie even made friends with some other little boys in the play area.


We always have a lot of fun in the play house there.


Taylor had to stay home with another fever the week after Halloween and spent the time bonding with her little sister.  The two are quite adorable together these days.


She was feeling better in no time.  Here's a photo of her dancing in her room after school.  Charlie couldn't help but to join in.


We participated in a very fun, meaningful, charitable donation.  It was for Operation Christmas Child.


The kids spent their own money ($20 each) on items that would fit in a shoebox.  Taylor bought for a girl aged 5-9 and Charlie did for a boy.


They then decorated their boxes, filled them, included a letter about themselves and dropped them off at Charlie's school, where they had a goal of collecting 700 boxes.




The kids will get to follow their boxes online and see which country they get delivered to.  They were so excited to be delivering Christmas cheer to children who were in need.  I was so proud of them.


On Wednesday of last week I had the rare opportunity to take Charlie out to lunch, just the two of us.


He may be the one that I have the most one-on-one time with only because he comes and cuddles with me almost every morning after Taylor's already left for school.  He was the one that actually suggested I take this photo. (a very rare request from Charlie)


Of course, Morgan and I get lots of time together, too.  My favorite is Morgan Mondays when I take her to her Mommy and Me class.  She calls it school and has started requesting it.


I'm not the only one who gets cuddle time, though. The kids love jumping on Daddy until he finally emerges from bed on the weekends.


Here's a cute progression of photos.  It's Charlie playing a computer game and Morgan playing with Charlie.








Taylor spent two nights at her grandmama's house last weekend.  The two went christmas shopping and came home with a few early presents.  This musical microphone was very popular with the girls. Morgan especially likes the feature that makes her voice sound like an elf.


She found a pair of Taylor's underwear the other day with Elmo on it and got very excited.





Here's a few more photos from that night.  Taylor reading to daddy before bed and Charlie being silly.





Charlie likes playing with his new Woody and Buzz.  Notice the ring of coins around Woody.  He loves playing with coins, too.


On Tuesday, Aunt Jessica invited the big kids over for dinner.  But before they left, I asked them to pose for my camera.  These were the poses they came up with.





I then got to have a dinner date with this little cutie.  (She was telling me not to take her picture.)


She perked up when I asked her if she wanted ketchup.


Finally, a shot from yesterday when I came to get Morgan up from her nap.  Lately, I've been letting Taylor get her up.  She loves doing it, but I realized that I miss that enthusiastic little greeting she gives when you coming to retrieve her from the pack-n-play.  Maybe we'll have to start taking turns...


Well, that's it.  Not too exciting.  I have not taken a photo of our gratitude garland that the kids and I have made, but I will do that in my Thanksgiving post.  Until then, have a great week everyone!!