Thanksgiving

We had a houseful for the week of Thanksgiving.  Daddy's parents got here ........ Hold on, let me start with Monday morning.

I had a lot to do Monday:  shopping, finish cleaning, more baking, laundry.  'Bout 8 am I got a text from Daddy "Did I leave my wallet at home?"  "Yes"  "Could you bring it to me?"  "Really.  A one way trip is 45 minutes.  OK.  Here I come."   Good thing I had already cancelled school for the day. 

OK.  On to later in the afternoon, Daddy's parents got here around 4.  His sister and 3 of the 4 children (The oldest is at PCC; only 17 days til he is home!) got there after dinner Monday night (dinner was at yummy Squealers).   Tuesday was ........ hmmmm.  I don't remember what we did Tuesday during the day.  I know dinner was at O'Charley's and that evening was Rock Band (only cuz i asked Daddy what we did)  (Check at the very end of the post for video.  Video is not so easy to move in this here new blogger format.)  Daddy's brother and family got here around midnight.

Wednesday was our Thanksgiving.  But just as importantly, we went to Chik-Fil-A for lunch.  My one niece loves it and so does Daddy's sister.  So my niece treated her two favorite aunts.  Then some of us went to see Kalei girl.  Same said niece as above brought balloons for her and Grandma to release.(see next post)  After seeing K girl, we went home and got our big, yummy meal ready.  I never did have dessert that night.  I was too full.

Thursday was our Christmas.  After breakfast, we opened presents.  It was the year of gift card--for most of us.  I got some Rachel Ray utensils and baking dishes (side note:  they are heavy!)   Daddy got a new pair of crocs.  Hoss got a new donut shaped bone, which he promptly demolished.  We gave everyone else, well I can't tell you because my side of the family hasn't opened their presents yet.  (check back for a post on the story of those presents and pictures)  We also started a new tradition (ooooo, aaaah, yeah!)  Later that afternoon, one family left.


Well, these weren't exactly a gift cards.

Grandma opening THE present.

This is what the 3 younger boys did.  Not sure who or what he is supposed to be.



Their Kalei thank you card; again, a future post.

Friday was black Friday.  We left the house at (drum roll) 10:30.  And still got most of what was on our list.  And for lunch we had (drum roll again) CFA!  That evening was Wii Fit. (Again, video is at the bottom) I won't describe exactly what happened; I'll just say there was a lot of laughing.  A lot.

All the visitors headed home Saturday.  We cleaned.  And our little house breathed a sigh of relief.  Our trash men did not.

A roof over our heads

Remember I hinted at a 3rd post that was forth-coming? Well it is finally here. My sister commented that she is tired of Legos. All right already! I'm blogging!

Ben's sister and her family (husband and 4 kids) came into town on the April 17th to help replace our roof. We called them our "out-of-town" contractors. Insurance had approved--last year-- for us to get a totally new roof. Because family helped, we were able to #1 upgrade several items for the roof #2 save our deductible and #3 still pay the "contractors." Pays to have family that is Handy and is willing to come help.

Here is a rough time line of our week.

Saturday: they arrived; we didn't do much

Sunday: we went to church in the morning and Red Lobster for lunch. After we got home, the guys started working while the ladies sat and watched. Always the best job.

Later in the afternoon, SIL and I were sitting talking. All of a sudden she got up and went to yell at Daddy, "I need to you to get off the roof now." I thought something was wrong. Once he got down (very rickety very high ladder), she told him to come around front. By this time I was kinda worried. Next thing I know, BIL told me to go around front. There in the driveway were my in-laws--who were NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO COME! We begged and begged for them to come and were told NUMEROUS times that they couldn't. Sneaky.

The guys (actually my niece worked too; can't leave her out) worked until about 9pm and got lots done.

Monday: Worked on the roof from 9 til 9--approximately.

Tuesday: Worked from 9 til a afternoon break and then til 8. AND IT WAS DONE!


Both of my kids got up on the roof to help. When K girl got up there the first time, BIL asked her what she was going to do. Her reply "Just sit here and look pretty." Typical.

Wednesday: Daddy's birthday (see next post)

Thursday: Did odd jobs around the house. Our last remembrance of Mugsy is finally gone. We also went swimming at Grandma's hotel pool. Man was that water WARM!

Friday: Daddy's parents left Friday morning and the SIL family left that afternoon. On their "way home" they went to the Creation Museum. One day we will get there. Just not sure when.

And that was our very busy but very productive week. It was so nice to see family and to get a new roof. That's killing two birds with one stone. ("But mommy why would we want to kill birds?" I'll let you guess who said that. And it's not the "looking pretty" one)

Merry Christmas!

Please begin reading this post at the bottom and scroll up. :)
When we were growing up, I remember taking a picture w/ eveyrthing that we got that year for Christmas so we could remember what we got. So here is C's picture for this year.

And here is K's picture.

C's "last to open " present--what he really wanted. Lego Indiana Jones for the Wii.

K's new dollhouse. And boy does she like it.

K's tutu. Isn't she cute?

Not sure what this was but I like how Daddy took the picture.

My mom got K a purple purse filled with goodies. I think it was one of her favorite presents. It had tissues, a purple comb, a nail file, a little toy doggie, and a key. She thought she was hot stuff!

This is C taking a picture of---something.

K got this for Daddy at the Cubbies store. It's a screwdriver on both ends. Very small and magnetic. Daddy used it at least twice already today!

C got me some nice new socks and very soft blue gloves. They are so soft!

We bought these for C at the Lego store in Disney. He also got a set from Grandma that are Indy Jones.

K wanted a Barbie doll. And this is Belle! What I like is that it is made more for her age. The shoes don't come off and neither do the clothes. The tutu does. No little parts for her to loose.

K was very love-y today. I'll take it when I can. She's usually not like that.

Daddy and I both got each other this game. Scrabble Slam. He and I actually played it tonight after the kids went to bed. It's really fun. He's really good at it.

Look at all those presents! Since we didn't go anywhere, all presents from everyone got sent to us. We had a lot. It took us quite awhile to open them all.

Here's Mugsy. He wanted to be in on all the fun, but he kept getting in the way. Poor guy. After we ate dinner tonight, he kept begging for turkey scraps. He got one little one. His Christmas present.

Merry Christmas to all! I hope everyone had a wonderful day. We are spending this Christmas here at home as our family of 4. Our only house guests are one dog (Mugsy) and 2 turtles (never heard of turtle sitting?)

PS: Blogger rearranged all my pictures and words. And it's too late for me to care.

The week in review

It has been a normal week around here. It's been nice to get back into a routine. I am a very routine-type person. I think my children are too.

Daddy didn't win his game Monday night but they did very well. They were winning most of the game. Green socks team beat us. It was hot and muggy but at least my kids didn't have to get a bath when they got home. Amazingly, they sat and didn't get dirty (they were threatened before we left).

Tuesday I had my 5 kids again. This may be the last time that there will be 5. Their oldest will be going to K5 soon. It was a typical loud, busy Tuesday.

But Tuesday night was wonderful. Daddy had gotten 3 free massages from his gym when he renewed his membership. And he gave them to me! I went for the first one Tuesday night. I'm hooked. I've never had one before. It was a 60 minute full body massage. It was so relaxing. It was really nice. I felt so good when I left. I felt "lighter"--that's the best way to describe it. I'm already looking forward to my next one.

Wednesday the kids and I did errands. We finally returned our old DVR that we had trouble with. When we hooked up the new one, we found out we have 150 hours to record instead of the old 100. Kinda nice. We got to eat lunch with Daddy too. That's always nice.

Thursday we were here, trying to get stuff done around the house. I got some done, but not as much as I had wanted. Isn't that always the case? I also took a meal to the family across the street. The mom had surgery on Wednesday, so I wanted to help out. Funny story about breakfast Thursday morning. I had decided to have frosted shredded mini-wheats. As usual, K didn't eat much or very well at breakfast. So when she came begging for a bite of mine, I gave her one. About 10 minutes later she still had it in her mouth. I'm guessing she didn't like it. So I told her to eat it and then she would be done and wouldn't have to eat any more. Next thing I know, she's saying, "Mommy, m'ere." She pulled me in the living room and showed me where she had spit it out onto the couch and covered it up with a pillow. It was like the kid that tried to hide his peas under the cushion on his kitchen chair. But the funniest thing was that she showed it to me! That's my K girl.

Last night for dessert I decided to make Rice Krispie Treats. It became a family affair. C wanted to help so of course K wanted to help. So I asked Daddy to stand with her since the kids were standing on chairs and the stove top was on. So C stirred the butter to help it melt and K tossed the marshmallows in the pot. I made a regular batch but put it in an 8x8 pan so they were extra thick. We let them cool-but not long enough-before we ate them. So they were still really sticky. It was kinda funny. K wouldn't have anything to do with them. It was a fun family time.

Today I am watching another friend's little girl. She's almost 1 and a chunk. Her brother (older) is having some kind of out-patient minor surgery. She's a good girl and my kids like to play with her. I also want to finish cleaning and get my "leftovers" from yesterday done.

For those of you who knew, I was to take C out for a "date" last night. We were going to go to the library and get ice cream. I've done this once before and we has so much fun! He and I need that time, cuz he and I but heads so much. It does us good to spend time together. But----he was warned more than once yesterday not to run in the house. On the "last straw" I told him that if he disobeyed again the result would be no date. Well--you guessed it--not 5 minutes later he went running to the other room. I was crushed! Do I pretend I didn't see it, so we could still go out? I did the right thing, and we didn't go out last night. He was crushed too. Maybe he will learn. We've rescheduled it for next week and we will see how he does.

This weekend we don't have much planned except a wedding that C and I are going to tomorrow afternoon. Other than that, the grass needs mowed and we are going to make Monkey Bread for breakfast tomorrow! YUM.