JUMP!

Thanksbegiving

This year we had the lucky treat of hosting Nick’s parents for the Thanksgiving holiday.  They were recently released from their 3 year service in the Accra, Ghana temple presidency. 

I am going to go ahead and start with the blog bragging.   Get ready.  This year I made cranberry sauce from scratch for the very first time in my 29 years of life.  I was amazed at how simple it is to make, and then was left wondering why in the world they sell it in a can!  (Though I do love a good ribbed cranberry mold)  I mean, if it were hard to make I could see it, but ah well.  So I found the recipe in this cool vintage Thanksgiving children’s book that was sitting out at the public library.  You can see that it is mouse approved, and that’s important.

The biggest challenge in making the meal was keeping the kids entertained and keeping their chubby little hands off all the stuff on the counter.  First I thought, ‘ah, just let them help’: It was about as helpful as I imagine a bunch of cats helping would be. 

I tried to distract them with food like my parents did with me back in the day:

Isn’t that a handsome cutting board?  My dad made it all by himself.  This was also the first time that I’ve ever seen Nick get excited about buying cheese.  Yes, Nick bought fancy cheese.  The kids were unimpressed with the fancy cheese.

So, I then gave them some of the cookies we had made the night before and the frosting container.  ‘Here, leave me be,’ I said, as I set the whole thing on the table. 

This worked for ten minutes.

In a desperate move I finally locked them outside.  They loved it:

Well, unlike the kids, at least the leaves I strung up around the door looked happy.

Then Nick got home from work and immediately got to work being helpful in the kitchen:

Oh wait, here he is being helpful:

While I wondered around our yard and jarbled this together for the table:

So, I’ll admit it, we put the kids down for a nap and we ate without them.  Perhaps I shouldn’t record that for posterity or the public, but as a result we had a lovely and relaxing meal where I actually got to chew my food.  Later, when presented with their own traditional thanksgiving food feast, they asked for coco puffs, so I just didn’t feel bad.

We had great fun with Grandma and Grandpa.  Rosalyn especially liked to boss Grandma around, making sure she knew where we were going and what we were doing next and all that. 

Here we are making the aforementioned sugar cookies with Grandma.

The boys enjoyed holding Grandpa’s hand instead of mom’s whenever we crossed a road, and all of them kept Grandpa with a steady supply of books to read while he was here:

Oh, and I like this picture of the Grandmas on Skype.

The end.  Happy Thanksgiving.

The spoils of Halloween

Surprisingly the spoils were generously shared with all.

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Everett: Q
Brookston: T
(Nick made these costumes! I’m so proud)


Roz: Pie  (I made this one, and it was the first time I sewed without wanting to defenestrate my machine in a long, long time.)
Cutie Pies.  Perhaps not as cool as last year’s.

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Unfortunately these little sugar pumpkins weren’t healthy enough to enjoy Halloween on the porch tonight.  We carved them a few weeks ago and they happily decomposed on the steps, but alas, were pretty much sludge by tonight.
So instead we lit up these pumpakins, which I think I made when I was 12 years old or so.

What do you do when no one is looking?

…Yeah, me too.

The cool things we’ve done since July

Played in the rain.

Played in the pool in the rain.

Painted ourselves.

Watched the road get chipped.

Built train tracks around the bed.

Threw stuff around.

Ate cheesy noodles.

Painted faces.

Among other things, not pictured.

Celebrating the 4th in the Midwest.

I’ve decided that I really appreciate celebrating Independence Day in the Midwest.  People in the small town heartland seem to be unabashedly patriotic.  The whole week we were visiting my parents, you could see American flags flown in people’s yards, special décor downtown, fireworks going off every night after sundown, and the day of the 4th it seemed everyone was wearing red white and blue.  Singing the Star-spangled banner in church and hearing everyone’s enthusiasm brought a tear to my eye.

Growing up in Colorado the fourth of July was my favorite holiday.  You might say it even topped Christmas and candy-laden Halloween.  I think I can see now that my Mom’s love for the holiday was infectious and she and my Dad always made the day really fantastic.  They would set up an elaborate homemade miniature putt-putt golf course in our yard and invite over a party of their own friends and their families.   (Luckily their friends were the parents of my friends).  Hosting big parties was kind of rare at our house, so I think it added to my anticipation.  After eating grilled meat and the accompanying baked beans and potato salad, we would drive up to Loveland and play card games and frisbee until the fireworks started over the lake.  The view was always excellent and the display spared no expense (or so it seemed to me) and I loved knowing that I was up really late as we all walked back to the car after the show carrying our blankets and following the slow procession around the lake and home.  Whether or not my parents did, I even have fond memories of the traffic (sorry if I complained though, Mom and Dad, I’m afraid you’re going to call me out and say that I whined about it) and the red glow in the car from all the taillights. 

Rosalyn and my mom watching the fireworks.

My mom really loves fireworks, so I always enjoy having her around to make appreciative comments.  I spent most of the night trying to get this picture (above) to work out.  I evidently do not know my camera very well, but I was happy that I got one that actually turned out well.  It was the first time that our kids had seen fireworks and they called them exploding rocks. 

A smiley face firework.

I like this picture from breakfast.  Rosalyn liked to use her charm to gain access to whatever it was that Grandpa was eating.  She was regularly successful and it made me sort of jealous since he eats berries in cream for breakfast. 

One day as we were driving back to my parent’s house with the kids the boys kept on saying “look there’s the sleeping silo!  Another sleeping silo!” Now, there are plenty of silos in Indiana, but there aren’t any around my parents house.  Finally, after much deductive thought and wondering about my kids and their imagination, I realized that there are a lot of weeping willows on the way to my parents house.  When I asked if they were looking at trees, they said “yeah, the sleeping silos.”  Funny. 

We took our kids to visit the fire station for the first time. 

Just as we arrived the fire engine drove out.  Here it comes, below:

Rosalyn found her doggie.

   Luckily there were plenty of other big trucks to snoop around on.  And luckily, we didn’t start any fires. 

 

 

 

Rosalyn is talking to the truck in its ear.

On the day of the fourth we had our good old friends the Davis’s come and photograph our entire family as a gift for my mom on her birthday (the 5th of July).  It was hot, and I was telling Kim that she should charge extra per degree over 95, but she’s a sweet gal and just laughed.  That’s professionalism, folks.  I am excited to see how they handled two 18 month olds, 2 three year olds, 3 kindergarteners, and 6 hot adults.  (Hot, like man my face is melting off hot, not like hot-bod hot.  Although, Nick is that… okay, mush, moving on.) 

They stayed for dinner and rockets.  My Dad has created a bottle rocket launcher, of the 2 liter bottle sort, and the twins and triplets rather enjoyed themselves with it.  My Dad is cool.

That’s my brother Bill, there, hooking up the compressor to the launcher.

Here’s a shot of Kim hard at work with her cute little man at her back taking a picture of my cute little man in his underwear.  You can just tell that we were having a blast. Pun totally intended. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At some point during the week, we went to the Indianapolis zoo with my Brother and his wife Sarah and their family.  This isn’t the greatest picture, but you can see the twins and the triplets and jett and roz trying to touch a shark.   Always a good time.

Kids and sharks seems like a good way to end it.  Bye for now.