Thanksgiving and Beyond

For Thanksgiving this year we had dinner with Jesse's family, something we haven't done for years. We all went to Josh's house (9 of us, including Levi). Josh made Turkey, stuffing, and gravy. Isabel brought mashed potatoes, and I made biscuits, steamed veggies, and carrot cake. It was kind of nice to have a smaller gathering (though I do like the big family events too). I didn't have to cook in such gigantic portions :)

Friday, Jesse had the day off, so we worked on cleaning out the "out house" in preparation for turning it into the woodshop.

Saturday Saskia, Darby, and the hooligans came over to hang out (it was too cold to do anything else). Maybe one of these times they'll come over when my house is clean and I have something to feed them :) It was good to see them, we haven't seen Darby in quite a while. Of course Autumn and Mahala were crazy about each other, they played the entire time. Little Cody likes his wooden rattle. Levi likes Cody...I'm not so sure the feeling is mutual. Draven and Aiden tied up my tree pretty nicely. William was only minimally cranky, he played with the girls quite a bit. He was upset that there wasn't a tutu for him, so he took the boppy pillow and used it as his tutu. Cute. I found out the secret to Saskia's dollmaking and if I ever get more wool, I may attempt a full sized doll.

Sunday was pretty quiet. Jesse went to work. I got the Christmas stuff out. Autumn nearly peed her pants with excitement. I decided that getting a real tree this year is just not a good idea (Levi would have it tipped over in minutes), so I put together the plastic one (and I like to NOT hang lights on a pine tree...did I mention that?).

Yesterday I took the little couch over to Guy's house. Woke him up (at 2pm). Went to Mom's and got some outdoor Christmas lights. Mine died and she's not hanging any up, so I relieved her of some of them. While I was there I ventured into the eaves of the house (accesible by tiny doors in various rooms upstairs). I went into the bathroom eaves. Its a little like a time capsule. All of the junk that I thought I needed to keep when I was a kid...that's where I kept it. Its kinda fun remembering what a major dork I was. Autumn thinks so too. All of the strange 80's toys now get passed on to her. We brought home "Deer-me" and "Kanga-roof" and some old books. I'm happy to see them again. When we came home I started on hanging lights outside, maybe I'll finish that today. The weather has warmed and the wind has ceased. I'm definitely spending today outside.