Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving this year was awesome.  My sister Rachel and her family came from Oregon and spent the week and the feast was at my house.  The kids had a great week playing with cousins and Claire and Piper spent 12 hours at a time in Claire's bedroom and if you tried to enter you were promptly told to leave!  They did not even come out for meals. 

Rach and I did the shopping together and I think we forgot more than we got at each store and so it took us literally all day Monday to get all the stuff we needed.  I had the un-brilliant idea of having the feast at 5:00 p.m.  That was not an awesome idea.  I put the turkey in at 1:30 and by 4:00 it was clear that 5:00 was not going to happen.  The entire family huddled around the meat thermometer rejoicing at each gained degree.  I began to think that the Turkey was a demon sent from Satan to torture me on Thanksgiving Day.  It was all a memory though by 7:00 p.m.  The food tasted great the company was great. 

This was literally Claire's first full meal in days.

I loved to put olives on my fingers when I was a kid. 

After all my slaving in the kitchen his favorite is Jello....go figure. 

 

 

Gramps with the Grandkids. 

 

 

Dad woke up to snuggle Luke. 

The kids passed the time playing board games.

   

 

 

The weather was so nice the kids played soccer while they waited for the Evil Turkey.  Until next year....Gobble Gobble

After All the Anxiety....

I pulled out Luke's first baby tooth.  Last Sunday Luke said that it hurt when he chewed his food and sure enough he had his first loose tooth.  He was very excited and LOVED wiggling it.  I think it is kinda gross to be honest.  Anyway, by Tuesday evening that thing was hanging on by a thread.  I was trying to be a patient mom and told Luke he could pull it when he wanted to.  But all the wiggling and hands in the mouth were starting to get to me.  When I started testing it for pulling readiness Luke had a major anxiety attack.  Luke does not like the unknown.  He was convinced that it would hurt like hades and then his brains would fall out.  He hyperventilated, he cried, he whined, he flapped his arms.  Finally I told Tim to hold him and I pulled that sucker out.  Just like that...Luke went from melt down to excitement. 

Before bed, Luke said that he really wanted to keep his tooth and that he hoped the tooth fairy would leave it.  Lo and behold, come morning he had money and his tooth was left.  I thought he wanted to hold onto it because Gage kept two of his extracted teeth, but no, Luke wanted to keep it to put it under his pillow again to try and "trick" the tooth fairy.  This time the Tooth Fairy took the tooth and only left 1 penny.  Luke was as happy with 1 penny as he was with the original pay out.
 

One cute thing.  Gage took me aside before bed and told me that he thought the Tooth-Fairy should pay Luke A LOT because it was so hard and scary for him to loose his tooth.  I asked him what he thought a fair amount would be and he stated 11 dollars ought to do it.  If Gage wants it I think he has a promising career as a lawyer.  Man, he's persuasive.      

Claire's Dance Recital

Claire has been taking a pre-ballet class through Community Ed for the last two months.  This week she had her first recital.  The recital consisted of one dance each for four different classes.  While Claire was adorable and danced well, I think, for a three year old.  The class, as well as the recital was described best, by Tim, when he said it was a HOT MESS!    The teacher, bless her wee heart, doesn't  have a clue what she is doing and it was an exercise in gross disorganization.  Tim's mom and my Dad made the effort to come and I was embarssed they had to witness the spectacle.

All things considered though, I only paid $35 for the class and Claire loved dancing around and wearing a tutu and being with her friend Addie.

 

In the video, Claire is on the front row second from the right.  Standing next to the girl with the big curly hair.    

 

Halloween 2012

 

 

 

This is the first year we went to a pumpkin patch to pick our own pumpkins and it was so fun.  The kids loved playing on the farm equipment and hay bales.  Gage got to lead us into the corn maze and Luke led us out.  We never got around to carving the pumpkins which is my bad. 

 

 

 

 



Halloween this year was the warmest on record so the kids didn't even need jackets.  We felt like we were in California this year and it was nice.  Claire was a fairy.  Gage was a phantom.  Luke was Harry Potter in the morning and trick or treated as a ninja.  He had no costume loyalty. 

This was taken after a trunk or treat with Aunt Pammy and Claire had taken off her fairy wings at this point.  It's too light to see that Gage had glowing red eyes that were kinda freaky...which he wanted to be freaky very much.  He unfortunately looked like a Jawa from Star Wars and he found this suggestion to be very offensive.  Claire was equally as incensed when people mistakenly called her a butterfly when she was clearly a fairy!  As Claire's sworn protector if someone called her a butterfly he was the most angry of them all. 

Claire's preschool class parade.  The alligator standing next her is the class bully Peter.  More to come on that situation. 

 

This is Luke's first elementary school parade. 

 

 

My camera ran out of memory space right as Gage's class was coming in front of me.  Trust me, Gage looked very scary with his black hood and glowing eyes!