Thanksgiving

I love my family. They are the five coolest, kindest, most beautiful people I know. This is most notable to me during the holidays when we all get to spend more time together. Usually we spend Thanksgiving with my side of the family, but this year we had the privilege of having my father-in-law in town for the holiday, so I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for him and my brother-in-law. What a fun day! A Thanksgiving meal is not easy to prepare. Add my neuroses that everything turn out perfectly, and it can make for a stressful day of cooking. I love it though. I love the stress, I love the planning, I love spending most of the day in the kitchen, but mostly I love the finished product when we all get to sit around the table and enjoy each other's company. Everything turned out great with the exception of a slightly undercooked turkey. But, hey what is Thanksgiving without a little salmonella?

The whole group Thankgiving morning

Being thankful is the best way to feel blessed, so here is my list of things I am thankful for. First my family, without whom I would be lost. They are my greatest accomplishment. I am thankful also for wonderful friends who would willingly drop anything to help me (and have). I am thankful for great parents who helped me become who I am, and awesome siblings who I consider my best friends. I am thankful for fantastic in-laws who not only think I am great, but tell me so frequently. I am thankful for a strong body that despite taking a lot of abuse, allows me to move and work freely. I am thankful for food. Mostly that we always have enough, but also that I get to enjoy the foods I love (there are so many!). I am thankful that I live in this country where I enjoy all the freedoms that I usually take for granted. I am thankful for a spacious home that is a little rough around the edges. I already said I am thankful for my family, but I want to give a special shout-out to my husband who is truly my better half. He works hard for our family. We are his purpose, his hobby, and his favorite thing. He loves his children, but more than that he loves me, including my flaws, my shortcomings, and my quirks (not the adorable ones, but the holy-cow-you-might-need-professional-help ones). I have an amazing life!



Rachel and me looking down from the top of Tablerock



OK enough sap. Now back to Thanksgiving day. In the morning I did a hike up Tablerock with my mom and dad, my sister Summer, and Rachel and Lilly. Rachel was very excited at the prospect of a hard hike because she thought it might help her in her training to become a Power Ranger. Lilly wanted to come because she does not like to be left out. Rachel spent more than half of the ascent running ahead of everyone, but petered out towards the end and I had to all but drag her to the top. Lilly on the other hand wasn't in any hurry, but she basically skipped her way to the top of the mountain. We explored the caves at the top for a while, where Lilly found about a dozen little green balls that she collected and shoved in her pockets. Rachel discovered broken glass from alcohol bottles. When we got back she explained in a whisper to her uncle Cody "People were drinking wine up there!" Per the green balls, when one would fall out of her pocket, Lilly would try to chase it down. On the descent, this started to look dangerous so we had to tell her if she lost one to just let it go. From there every time one would fall out she would start to chase it, stop and say, "Oh, yeah. That's OK." What a joy she is! I love that my big girls are getting old enough to do stuff like this.

On a Carson note, I have a couple of Boise State shirts now. I know I know, it only took my 10 years to succumb, but in my defense, they were given to me. Whenever I wear one Carson says, "You are a football-soccer mom!" I love the things he says. Maybe because I am still surprised that he talks so well now. This morning he noticed one of the chairs was broken and he stuck his finger in the air and said, "I have an idea! Daddy can come home and fix this chair!" He said it as though he had just discovered electricity. 

Lilly inside a Tablerock cave



Emilia is officially walking much of the time. She is becoming quite stable, and is really fun to watch. Her new-found skill makes her think she one of the big kids and wants to be wherever they are. This is great for me because she is much less attached. I used to be her main source of excitement. No hard feelings though. I am totally OK with it.

One final Rachel story. Last night she got out of bed because she just had to tell me something. She wanted to know if I had red, orange, and blue thread, and if I did, could I make her a Power Ranger and Spiderman outfit. Rachel apparently WAY over estimates my sewing abilities. Apparently she forgot it took me two years to sew her a simple quilt.

Halloween

Once again, life has gotten in the way of me blogging as much as I would like. There have been a few major events that are just waiting to be put down. Here we go!

Halloween was a success! I don't sew, I am not particularly crafty or creative, and I am cheap. At the same time it is important to me that my kids feel like they are as pretty, scary, silly, or cool as all the other kids on Halloween. This creates a great deal of anxiety for me. This year we borrowed an Esmeralda costume (Hunchback of Notre Dame) for Rachel, and a bumble bee costume that would have worked for Lilly or Carson from a neighbor. I talked Lilly into being a 50's girl since I already had a poodle skirt, and just assumed Carson would be ok with the bee costume. A couple of nights before Halloween he insisted that he wanted to be a t-rex. He insists on so very few things, and I wanted him to get his way, but there were no dinosaur costumes to be had, and no time or money to hunt one down. I talked him into being a bad guy, a costume that consisted of a brown smock, one of my scarves tied around his waist, a bandanna and some scary make-up. Lilly ended up with the bee costume after she informed me she didn't even know what a 50's girl is. Emmy dressed as a 50's girl, and everyone was happy. I was once again reminded how little my children need to feel satisfied. And the most important part to them was that they got candy anyway!

Emmy walking

Emmy finally took her first real steps on Halloween, which makes her my second child to do this (Lilly being the first). This would be more impressive if she weren't almost 16 months old. She still prefers crawling to walking. She does do this funny thing while I am exercising. She crawls over to me, stands up, and tries to mimic what I do. So, my baby won't walk, but she can do squats and burpees!

Rachel opening presents

Rachel had a birthday. My baby is seven years-old now! She asked for a Power Rangers cake which my neighbor was nice enough to make. For months she has been saying that for her birthday she wants to go to Big Al's Arcade with her dad. We let her choose two friends to go with her. She picked Livvy and her cousin Brady. I think it was a success since she was all-smiles when she came back. They decided to watch The Princess Bride after the Big Al's adventure. Lilly watched too, and all was fine until the scene where Buttercup and Wesley are attacked by the rodent of unusual size. When Wesley kills the giant, disgusting, man-eating rat, Lilly refused to watch another second of the movie, out of concern for animals everywhere. So they all made up a play for me instead. Rachel has learned from me. She spent the entire month leading up to her birthday using the "it's almost my birthday"card. "Mom, can I stay up since it's almost my birthday?" "Can I have the biggest pancake since it's almost my birthday?" "Can someone spend the night since it's almost my birthday?" The day after her birthday she asked if she could stay up late since "it was just my birthday?" That one got a roar of a laugh from me, and put an end to the month of entitlement.

Lilly's best friend got a new bike for her birthday. Lilly was bitterly jealous, which is uncharacteristic of her. She wept and cried because she doesn't have such a cool bike. I understood her disappointment, but I was not very accommodating to the huge fit she was throwing. It seemed ungrateful. Ok, I am warning you that what I am about to tell you does not show me in my best light, and was admittedly a mother-fail on my part. I told Lilly there are children in the world who don't even get to eat, let alone have a bike. And since she has both food and a bike she should stop complaining. She did not believe that there were really children in the world with no food, so I pulled up some images of starving children in Africa. It turns out a white child in America cannot relate at any level to the images I showed her. To her, these children did not look like children, they just looked scary. She wept even harder as she asked me the following three questions "Why did you show me those?" "Why are their bones sticking out of their skin?" and "Why are they green?" It was a devastating hour for both of us.

My kids playing outside AND getting along. My two favorite things! By the way, they are pretending they are in jail, and I put them there.

So we have been working with Carson on saying words right. He gets lazy and starts every word with an "h" sound. So "fire" is "hire" and "sandwich" is "hamwich". He has gotten much better about enunciating. His new thing is that the lines on the laminate floor in the kitchen are fire. So anytime I am cooking or doing dishes he comes in and articulates very slowly and firmly "I said to you this is FIRE!" I tried telling him that I am wearing fire-proof shoes, but he always says "no" in a tone that is similar to "duh". Aside from the fire thing, nothing really gets him riled up. Rachel karate kicked him the other day because he distracted her while she was playing an electronic game. Consequently, we took away her little game thing for a while. She was devastated. Even though Carson was the victim, he hugged her and patted her on the back to try and comfort her. He is such a nice, easy-going kid. I like him so much!