Thanksgiving 2011

11/24- It's Thanksgiving morning!!  Each year, we give the boys an ornament the represents something from their year.  They unwrapped them this morning and put them on the tree....

A train for Cainan... he's been really into trains this year.  He loves putting together tracks and watching trains go. 

A robot for Boaz!  His favorite song is Mr. Roboto and he has some really sweet robot moves that make us laugh. 

After we unwrapped ornaments, we enjoyed watching some of the parade on TV!

Cainan & Myka have been a little under the weather the last couple days, so we decided to keep them home from Thanksgiving festivities this year.  They've had a stomach bug and we don't want to pass it along!!  Luke & Boaz have been fine, so they went ahead and enjoyed the day with family.  I was so sad to miss out on time with all the cousins!  :(

Cainan felt well enough to take a walk and enjoy the nice weather this afternoon. 

And I didn't totally miss out on the Thanksgiving meal...  Luke was kind and brought me home a plate of turkey & mashed potatoes!!

pinky, dancing, and pilgrim hats

11/23- Pinky came to our house for the weekend!  The boys were so excited to take care of the neighbors' fish while they were away. 

They had fun feeding it each morning. 

They talked to Pinky, watched Pinky swim, and didn't want Pinky to go home when our job was done!  I assured them we'd get to see Pinky again soon...

More fighting!!  I ended up seperating them and they each had to play with different stacks of blocks without looking at each other.  :)

And then there's Myka.... I don't think she'll have an angry bone in her body. 

She was content to hang out and watch our "Moves Like Jagger" dance party this morning.  The boys like to sing the chorus of that catchy tune around here.  So today I found it online and we had a pick-up party and danced like crazy.  About the third time through the song, I realized how horrible the lyrics were!!  Guess we'll stick to kids' music and 101.9 from now on.   :(

This afternoon, we worked on a Thanksgiving project... pilgrim hats!  We read a book about pilgrims and then attempted to make the hats.  Cainan was the marshmallow hander. 

Boaz was the cookie placer.  And mom was the chocolate dipper. 

At one point, I left the room for a second to get Myka and came back to find a couple sneaky chocolate faces!!

Watching a show while I clean up the mess... think they look like siblings? 

These are pictures from the previously mentioned dance party.... 

Here's our finished product!  They didn't turn out as cute as I'd hoped.  My sister made these a couple years ago and they were so perfect.  Hmmmmm.....

deck the halls

11/22-  Boaz played Santa today and spent his morning bringing me toys for being such a good mommy.  (That's what I told myself, anyway!)

Before we decked the house, the boys decked each other.  Their fight escalated quickly and before I knew it, Boaz had a nice bite mark in his arm and Cainan had a giant one on his cheek!!  The pictures I tried to capture do this bite no justice.  It was big and ugly for several days!

Later today we did finally deck the house for the holidays.  The boys enjoyed getting out the snowmen. 

No, mine!!

Cainan found a nice place for his snowman... he was pretty proud. 

This is how we spent our evening... jumping off tables.  A pretty typical scene around here.  :)

November night

11/21-  Boaz has been playing some computer games during some of his quiet times lately.  Often after Cainan wakes up, he'll join his brother at the table to see what he's doing.  (He still hasn't figured out that Boaz isn't napping!)   Today Boaz was teaching Cainan how to click on different things- and I got a glimpse of two young men... instead of two little toddlers.  It was weird!!   

Myka tried out her exersaucer for the first time today!  She liked it... for about 5 minutes.  Then she got overwhelmed and wanted out.  It didn't help that her brothers were excited and bounced her around a lot.

Tonight after dinner we bundled up to go on a walk!!

Our destination??  The FROSTY house!!

We stood and said 'Hello' to Frosty.  Then we watched the deer.   Then we walked home.  It was a short peaceful walk... so thankful to be taking walks at this time of year!!   Something sweet about watching the boys together under the glow of Christmas lights.  I love watching them share the excitement of the season together.

O Christmas Tree

11/19-  I typically wait until after Thanksgiving to put the tree up, but the boys just couldn't wait.  We pulled it out tonight and got to work!

I realized that this is Cainan's 'First Christmas.'   The first one that he understands, anyway.  It was fun to see him excited about all these new things. 

Here's the stockings!

Ozzie gets soooo excited when we pull out stockings!  He ran around the room shaking his- in hopes that a treat might fall out. 

The stockings turned into sock puppets for awhile, of course. 

And we found the Santa hats! 

The boys helped me fluff the branches and get the lights on.  Then we added some silver pinecones. 

My little stacker made this nice pile of pinecones....

Cainan's stack... delicately balancing on a single branch. 

Time for the star!!  Then we called it quits for the night and will dig out ornaments tomorrow!

11/20-  After church today, Cainan was wiped out.  He fell asleep in the car (which typically happens), and when we carried him in, he didn't wake up!  (which never happens)  

I took his shoes & coat off of him and asked if he wanted to join us for lunch at the table, to which he replied, "Uh uh..."   He laid like this on the couch for over an hour while we ate and talked and went about our business. 

After lunch and Cainan's nap, we attempted to take a picture for a gift we're giving Grandpa Glace.  A book of pictures of all the grandkids that he can take in the truck with him.  We'd gone to Katie's earlier in the week to attempt getting pictures of the kids, but they didn't turn out real well. 

Most of our attempts looked like this...

But today, we got a few decent shots!

Then we dug out the ornaments and got to work making this tree beautiful.

"Put this one up high, Mom!"

 Cainan covered the bottom branches well. 

 Had to get a picture of how uneven and funny the ornaments looked.  I fought the urge to space them out and make them look pretty.  Someday (all too soon) I'm going to miss my tree looking like this!!

 The finished product...

 Cainan was still pretty wiped out and not feeling the best by dinnertime, so we watched a movie and had picnic dinners on the couch.  This pose is very unlike Cainan, also!

 But of course, after the movie he was well enough to freak out his sister.   :)