Our Thanksgiving

I forgot to trot out the camera for the Thanksgiving meal, but here's a little Turkey Day video taken later in the afternoon when the children were out playing and Michael was putting up some outdoor Christmas lights.


It was a nice day. The children sat and watched the full three-hour Macy's parade in the morning with Michael while I made the meal.

I had a good idea this year, one which I'm sure that anybody else experienced in preparing a big meal is a pro at: I did a lot of pre-cooking the day before! It worked out so great. I was so less frazzled. And, perhaps most importantly, the kitchen was not such a big mess! I was prepared and, as a result, relaxed. Heck, I even made my own pie crust (Yum and pretty easy Martha Stewart recipe) and homemade cranberry sauce. Every year I always intend to make homemade cranberry sauce but never get around to it. It could not be easier. I will never eat cranberry sauce out of a jar again. Well, I will make that a goal, anyway. (The Pink Stuff reference in the video is a little fruit salad with cool whip that turns pink from the cherries and strawberries.)

On Sunday we went high, high into the forest and chopped down a Christmas tree. We drove to a different area than the past two years, one which ended up being more Ponderosa pine territory (and what we did see was not plentiful). But we lucked up and found a lone, perfect spruce. We wasted no time trying to get it down. Turned out to be quite thick and heavy (a lot of sawing).



We had to cut probably 3 feet off it just to get it to fully stand in our house. Check out how big it was when we first stood it upright. We shaped it down considerably but still have some more to do.


Then guess what? I'd just tucked myself into bed when ... big thud sound. I searched around in the hallway bathroom and closet thinking something in there fell, since I'd just been rummaging around in the closet. Nothing. I descended the stairs and could see in the dark that the tree was no longer standing.

We were lucky on many levels: first that neither human nor dog was in the way; second that it fell at just the right angle so as not to crash into our big bookcase/china cabinet with glass doors (filled with many breakable and precious things) or the coffee table -- it fell just between the two; and third that I had not decorated it yet, as all of our ornaments are one-of-a kind momentos/collectibles from trips and/or are hand-painted and breakable... or, now that we have children, are homemade treasures from the kids. Anyway, I mopped the water and swept the needles while Michael anchored the tree to the wall.

Hopefully, we'll get around to decorating it soon.

Cirque Show

On Saturday we treated Anna to a traveling Cirque show, which is one of our local Broadway series productions.

A month or so ago Michael and I went to see Mama Mia, which was so much fun and pretty much exactly the same as the production (props, setting and all) that we saw in Chicago six years ago before we moved. He and I were initially planning to go to the Cirque show, but he ended up registering for a racquetball tournament last week that carried over into the weekend. Plus, we figured Anna would enjoy it, being that she's in gymnastics and all.

It sure was fun getting dressed up with her and treating her like that. Look how adorable she is! She behaved like a perfect little lady and only got bored once during a mime's extra long bit.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Michael (who ended up being home during the show time, after all) took Alexander to a model train railroad exhibit. So, they had plenty of boy fun.

Here are photos of Anna before we left for the show teasing Shreve with her Halloween candy, one of her reading the program and one of her sipping lemonade during intermission.

Getting The Holiday Spirit Early

Whew!

We were busy as bees all day Saturday. First I took the kids to Anna's gymnastics lesson (Alexander played with his cars during this time).

Then we went straight over to Alexander's school where the PTO hosted a holiday craft day for students and their siblings. That was a lot of fun for the kids, who made Christmas tree-shaped bookmarks, Christmas ornament suncatchers; painted ornaments (which tested my patience a bit, because the kids decided to try out painting with those sponge brushes and failed to squeeze out all the water before dipping into a new paint color and then applying it to the ornament); holiday charm neclaces; button wreaths; homemade holiday cards; pumpkin weaving.

After this fun outing, we went home for a quick bite to eat before heading out again. Anna and I got dressed up and went to the theatre while Michael took Alexander to the model railroad society's big train exhibit and then a little Christmas shopping.

Then when we all convened again, I changed back into some more casual clothes and met two friends for dinner and then grocery shopping. Meanwhile, Michael took the children out to eat at Chuck E Cheese, where they played lots of games and stuff for a while.

It was a very busy day, and we took it kind of easy Sunday.

Here are photos from the holiday craft outing.

Park 'N Ride

The days this past week have been just gorgeous.

So on Sunday afternoon we packed up the bicycles and headed to one of our parks with the whole family, including Mr. Shreve.

The Halloween Scenes

Our little princess and little cowboy had a fun and busy Halloween on Saturday.

Anna not only had gymnastics and basketball earlier in the day but was joined by brother Alexander in pumpkin-carving fun followed by, of course, trick-or-treating.

Pretty amazing how all the snow from just two days earlier was completely melted, and the temperatures were actually quite mild early on in the evening!

Here are the photos.