Real Thanksgiving

Real Thanksgiving was a slightly different story than Friendsgiving.  The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Rex came home not feeling well.  By the end of the evening, he spiked a fever and I cancelled my Wednesday plans.  We stayed home and play most of the day on Wednesday, until the kids started bickering too much and I forced them to go on a hike around the property, which actually ended up being quite fun and semi-educational (we went to the property next door that had just been clear cut and talked about all the things we use wood for).

We found Greg's tree stand on the back edge of the property, so obviously had to take turns hunting.

At 5 o'clock, Rex got in my bed and didn't wake up.  I told Greg that maybe Rex and I ought to stay home since I didn't want to get Maurine's kids sick but Greg insisted that we go.  So we did.  And Rex was fine.  He spent the entire day outside running around with his cousins and reminding me of playing pits at Grandma Deon's with my Gosney cousins.  Henry also spent most of the day outside trying to get someone to take him for ride on the 4 wheelers or the hot wheels.  In fact, the weather was so perfect the adults ate outside.  Alice, on the other hand, made it to about 1:30 before she announced that she didn't feel like herself and climbed on my lap.  She stayed there for the next 45 minutes or so until we were ready to eat.  Then she laid on the couch while I ate.  I gave her some Tylenol, so she perked up a bit for a while, just long enough to take a post-turkey, pre-dessert walk about the neighborhood, but by 4, she had stolen my phone and curled herself up on the couch with some Aquanauts for the rest of the evening.   We left around 7, and luckily for us, everyone feel asleep in the car.

We had a pleasant time with good conversation and way too much food, but I hate having sick kids, especially sick kids around other kids because then it's my fault if the other kids get sick.  I haven't heard about any sick cousins, so maybe we dodged the bullet on that one.

And seeing how Alice hi-jacked my phone, these are the only pictures I got of the day.

Friendsgiving

...is definitely one of my absolute favorite holidays.

1. Because all my friends are amazing cooks/bakers and spend hours and hours brining and preparing and cooking and the food is simply amazing.  This year, however, I was little sick to the stomach so didn't get to enjoy the food quite as much, but still amazing.  I made jello.

2. It's like a warm up to real Thanksgiving.  I try out new recipes and if the don't work out, then well, don't do that again for real Thanksgiving.  The pressure to be perfect just isn't there, because, well, Friendsgiving is a made up holiday.

2.  I have the best friends.  I really do.

3. This year, we conned Becky into being our friend and letting us do Friendsgiving at her house so the kids actually had a kid table to sit at and they sat there and ate and then disappeared into the recesses of her giant house while the adults sat at her 12 foot table and laughed about everything.

4.  My friends are better than yours.

Rainy Day Things

The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet WEEK.  And then Mom was going crazy and really wanted some pine cones to add to my Thanksgiving center piece (sorry we're jumping all time today), so Henry, Alice and I decided to put on all our snow gear (Thanks Kenzie), and head out for a walk and pine cone collecting adventure.  

And it was bliss.

One of those time that I wish I could have captured every moment to store up and save for later.  One of those times, that I soon as I get to Heaven and get to re-watch the movie of my life, I'll fast forward to this.

We started off on the Wheatley's unpaved driveway.  They had pot holes up to Henry's knees.  And since we were on a rainy-day adventure, I let him splash all he wanted.  He "fell" into the water and got up and jumped and fell again and run through it and I wish I had a video of how happy he was but it was raining and I didn't want to ruin my phone so I just tried my best to memorize it instead.

Once we got to the Wheatley's we followed the trail past Parker's Paradise and into the forest.  Alice got a little concerned about bears, but I assured her we'd be just fine.  Along the way we filled our bag with pine cones and talked about different kinds of trees.  When we reached the back of the property, we discovered a lake.  And I discovered the giant hole in my rain boots.  The lake covered the trail for about 100 feet and came up to my mid calf.  Henry swam through it and then back again, and again.  Alice splashed and we were the only ones in the world.  Once we got through the lake, Alice got cold and decided we should head for home, but Henry found at least a million more puddles that had to be jumped in before we got home.

Then we made hot chocolate and read stories by the "fire" (we have an electric space heater shaped like a fire), and I did an extra load of soaking wet laundry, but it was worth it.

Unfortunately, I was unable to get Alice to repeat our adventure when Rex got home from school.  Maybe next year when she's forgotten how cold she got. 

Everyday Things

If there is one thing you need to know about Henry, it's that he is always hungry.  Henry's crying, give him food. 

Most of his first words were food related: mok (milk), cheez (cheese), ho do (hot dog) and other such things.   Only recently has he started saying non-food words, like push, hurt, car (obviously) and outside.

He is getting pickier these days and will often insist on "am n cheez" (ham and cheese), then cry when you give it to him because he's nearly 2.  Leave him long enough and he'll stop crying and eat it.  He also insists on feeding himself, which is nice because he feeds himself, but not so nice because he's a little messy.  He's now learned how to say "A was hans" (Wash hands).

Here he is one Sunday morning eating eggs with tongs, because that's practical.

 And the Sunday after Halloween when he ate 2 and a half hot dogs for lunch.  *belch*

But he sure is cute, especially dressed as a baby professor.

Santa is NOT Real

We are doing Advent again this year.  Friday we went to the Kannapolis Light Show.  It was cold. But it wasn't crowded and it was fun.

We also saw Santa and as the kids were heading up to say hi,  I wondered out loud how many Santa's we could take them to in one year before they figured out that Santa wasn't real.

Flash forward to tonight:

We're reading Jon Agee's Little Santa, which I highly recommend, and Alice declares "This is non-fiction."  I quickly correct her, then realize my mistake.  I back track and have her tell me why she thinks it's non-fiction--because Santa is a real person, obviously.  Well, that's a good reason why it's non-fiction, I respond.  We leave it at that.

Rex then chimes in.  Santa isn't real.  Every time we see Santa he's a different person so he can't be real.

Point Rex.

Whelp, at least I didn't have to tell him and he figured it out on his own.  I did tell him not to tell Alice because that would make her sad, we'll see how long that lasts.

And then, bed.

This is one of the creepier Santa's we've visited. 

Meanwhile, Henry will have nothing to do with him.

Bundled up, waiting for the light show to start.

decorating cookies

Oh, look, Henry's eating.

We also went on a carousel and Henry was cracking me up.  As a side note, the second the carousel started, I remembered that I get motion sickness and thought I was going to puke--hence the end of the video where I just stick my phone back in my pocket so as to keep the chunks down.

Every Day Things

Aside from the first 3 minutes of every morning as I slap my phone and stumble, half-blind to the bathroom to brush my teeth, the 20 minutes it takes Rex to do his homework is the worst 20 minutes of my day.  Every day.  Except Friday, because there is no homework on Friday.

Rex's homework is super easy. Re-read a book that he's already read several times and that is also, by the way, below his reading level, and answer a single question about it.  Grant it for a developing writer like Rex who still has to think how to spell every word, this does take time, but it's mostly the whining that gets to me.  The crying.  The throwing pencils.  The rolling on the floor.  The every thing. It's horrible.  I have to set the timer for him.  He has 20 minutes to finish and if he doesn't finish in 20 minutes, then he doesn't get to finish, which is a horrible punishment for him.

On a side note, once a week he gets a math worksheet to do for his Talent Development class.  He comes straight in, gets it out, doesn't ask for a snack, and does the entire worksheet in about 10 minutes.

As a self-proclaimed writer, his hatred of literary analysis, hurts my feelings.

But it's a good thing he's so cute and a little silly or I might just kill him.

Every day things

Alice is a vampire.  She is the worst sleeper in our house.  When she was a baby, I blamed myself, my lack of adjustment to moving to North Carolina, and over coddling her to make up for Rex being so demanding during the day.  Turns out, Alice is just a vampire.

Our nights go like this: 

6:30-7:15: I turn into the devil trying to get the kids to clean up their giant mess, clean their room, get their jammies on and brush their teeth.

7:15: Stories, scriptures, prayers

7:30 Kids in bed.  Give Alice a bottle (yes she still drinks out of a bottle), lay down with Alice, tuck Rex in.

8-9:00: Do dishes, finish cleaning, etc.

9:00 on ward: convince Alice to get in the bed and stay there while she insists that she's not tired and can't sleep--probably because she doesn't stay in bed longer than 15 seconds at a time.

Eventually she falls asleep but is usually back up at 2:30 to get in bed with me.  Sometimes I allow this because I'm too tired to deal with it; sometimes I'm too tired to have a squirmy little something kick me for two hours so I sitck her back in her bed.

One night, I found her like this: laying in the doorway to her room.  Rex needed to sleep so he could get up for school the next morning so I turned off their nightlight to encourage Alice to stay in bed.  She did this instead. 

 Because she's up all night, it takes her a long time to wake up in the morning.

 This was the worst.   She woke up at 5 am insisting that she was done sleeping and refusing to be quiet.  She ran around the house for a while and eventaully succeeded in waking up the entire house.  At 7, I took Rex out to wait for the bus, which was late, no surprise there.  When Henry and I got back inside, she'd fallen asleep in front of the fire place.  I was not a happy camper. In fact, I was a very tired camper, but she slept for a few more hours even with Henry jumping on her until I had to wake her up to go to dance.

It's a good thing she's so cute.  Oh, guess what I just heard: Alice sneaking out of her room.  I'm going to pretend like I didn't hear her and enjoy my adult silence sequestered in the back room where she doesn't dare enter lest I turn off her night light.