Thanksgiving

We spent the holiday in Pennsylvania with my brother Scott's family and my parents. It was a lot of fun and the food was delish (thanks to my sis-in-law, Codi). We mostly laid around all weekend which was FABULOUS!The kiddie table (the two babies were elsewhere):

The kids loved hanging out together. Lizzie and a couple of her cousins spent a night swimming and sleeping at Nana and Papa's hotel which seemed to be nice for everyone involved.Scott showed us his snakes. His adorable little assistant is his five-year-old daughter who is pretty much fearless when it comes to snakes.

In this shot I'm pretty sure Scott had just asked Iris how many times she has been bitten by one of the snakes. Three times! I like snakes, but I'm not sure the warm fuzzies would linger after even one bite.

The kids (AND ANDREW) couldn't get enough of Nana's iPad. Something the grown-ups couldn't get enough of: Killer Bunnies.

Andrew took the kids outside to ride bikes and scooters one afternoon, and to Tangled (with Papa) another. One day Drew suggested that I do something with my kids and, offended, I started to list all the things that I had done with them only to realize that I actually hadn't done much but change diapers and dish out food. I'll bond this weekend when Drew's ski-patrolling.

I had a lot of Thanksgiving activities planned, but barely got around to any of them. Here's what we managed to do:

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Make a pumpkin pie with a hand turkey (because Liz loves pumpkin pie and we weren't planning to have them at Thanksgiving dinner because us grown-ups don't particularly care for it). It didn't look at all like the example from the magazine, but tasted just fine.

We practiced our etiquette. Now, I'm not saying we had stellar Thanksgiving table manners or anything but, maybe there was some improvement (or at least we're more aware of the rules). I plan to make this refresher course an annual thing.

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When I told Andrew about my plan he said something about not wanting to have the "manners police" at every meal and about how I shouldn't expect everyone to be super proper all the time. For example, he said people shouldn't have to put their napkins in their lap at fast food restaurants. I told him that I completely disagreed and that people should especially put their napkins in their laps in fast food restaurants. Luckily for me Liz was excited about the learning the rules.

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For our lessons I traced place settings on the back of dollar-store place mats so Liz could learn the appropriate way to set a table.

We made stuff with apples which is not exactly holiday-related, but seasonal (and I had a lot of apples to use up). We tried to make mini caramel apples which didn't quite work but tasted fabulous. Our inside-out caramel apples worked much better. I also made baby food for Ellie and Drew made the filling for our stuffed french toast. Yum.

We made a Thanksgiving Gratitude turkey. I drew it. Liz painted it. And . . .

We all added feathers to it throughout the month (Lainey put them wherever she could reach--I love it).

Some of my favorite contributions from Lizzie:

Now I'm looking forward to tomorrow and the countdown to Christmas. My advent calendar is filled with daily activities, my holiday library books are wrapped, and I've even managed to buy some gifts already which is a huge improvement from last year.

Playing with Daddy:

HORSEYBUCKING BRONCO
WRESTLING

AIRPLANE

TICKLING

COMBO: AIRPLANE & BUCKING BRONCO

Great Wolf

We spent a couple nights at Great Wolf Lodge nearly a month ago (and I'm just now getting around to recording it). We had a lot fun, highly recommend it, and of course, plan to go again in the next year or so. Laina loved these wolf ears. She called them "hoooowwwwllll" and slept in them both nights.

This year we let Lizzie do MagiQuest. I thought it was a bit pricey, but worth it. Lizzie was the perfect age for the game and had a lot of fun.

We brought an underwater camera with us this time. The photo quality was just so-so, but it was a fun option. Alaina loved playing with the camera and I'm a little concerned that she'll try to submerge our other ones.

I'm sure this won't be the last time she does this:

For the record I gave Alaina a pen AND a note pad to draw on while we waited in the kiss 'n ride line for Lizzie. I just got so absorbed with my own list making that I didn't check back with her to make sure she was actually using the paper.

The best thing that happened today:

I found this baby blanket for this sweet little baby.

It had been missing a little over a week. I retraced my steps on the last day I remembered having it: playgroup, dollar store, Silver Diner. I checked each location. No luck. I felt like a big jerk. Here I'd lost this fabulous quilt that my mother made and someday Lizzie and Lainey would be able to wrap their little babies in their old quilts, but not Gabrielle. Then this morning I decided to call Silver Diner to check just one more time and they had it! I was so excited I started giggling on the phone.

I'm so relieved and now I won't feel guilty when I see my mom at Thanksgiving dinner next week (check out those knuckle dimples--I love 'em).

Oh, and now Ellie has somewhere soft to play (yes, she has other blankets but they are in storage and her sisters aren't to keen on sharing theirs).

It feels like it's been awhile since I've done a Gabrielle update so here we go: she's about one week shy of her six month mark, she's ticklish, she's mellow, she's grabby, she's absolutely adored. She loves splashing in the bath and the noises Costco baby wipes containers make.

She sucks her thumb (and fingers), but we're big binki fans so we're pushing that as well.

She's super drooly--her tops are always moist--but no teeth yet (her sisters each got their first tooth around 11 months).

I'm really loving crocheted beanies on her.

She's really into her sisters. She and Alaina often entertain each other during back-to-back diaper changes.

Though sometimes things don't go so well. It's hard to see but Gabs has a fist-full of Lainey's hair.

Gabby seems to enjoy both tummy and bumbo time.

She can usually entertain herself for a bit by watching her sisters or grabbing her feet.

But somtimes she gets left too long, poor third baby.

I love her guts!