Thanksgiving and Gearing Up for Christmas

Thanksgiving went really well this year.  We got up early and watched the parade, then the dog show stayed on while Pinkie and I prepped and stuffed the turkey.  Pinkie had never done it before, and since she's interested in cooking, I decided it was time, especially if she wants to go into culinary.  It's going to be necessary to learn how to work with raw meat, as much as she doesn't want to.  She was pretty proud of having helped make dinner for Thanksgiving.  Then the kids did their favorite thing to do ever, played lots and lots of Minecraft.

No, I'm sure it's not surprising that the kids played Minecraft, but this time they played in Festive world, which is the Christmas world on Minecraft.  We listened to the "Friendsgiving" station on Pandora while the tree was brought up from the basement.  Though it's not a traditional Thanksgiving thing to do, we set up the tree.  The kids loved watching it go up in the background while they played Minecraft.  They had a lot of fun exploring all the different places they could go.  They found things out like the presents were made of wool.  It was great to see them working together to build their house, and to hear their comments as they flew through Santa's Workshop.

While that was fun for the older kids, Bear got quickly bored of watching them.  Together we sat to work on something we'd gotten started with a long time ago, making potholders, though I guess they don't call them pot holders anymore.  We picked out "Frozen" colors, though the lighting isn't good to see it here.  It's dark blue, light blue, pink, and purple.  And, no, Bear isn't hiding because I don't want my kids' faces on the internet, but because that's what Bear wanted to do for a picture.  Silly Bear!

I absolutely love the idea of making these little pot holder things.  They're great for the manual dexterity thing.  It's not exactly easy to weave those loops through each other to get them hooked at either edge.  It takes patience to work through each segment, making sure that everything is crossed the right way and over or under both sides of the loop it's passing.  I ended up weaving the edge together because that part is frustrating and challenging, even for me, and I'm an adult.  As much as I used to love doing those as a kid, I can't help but think how complicated the craft really was.  The funny thing is I used to love doing them when I was younger, but now it boggles my mind how I did it all those years.  It's kind of a pain to work with.

And oh my goodness the food!  We had so much food, more than we could ever possibly eat in one day, or so I thought.  This is my stove.  On it are gravy, mashed potatoes, peas, corn, green beans (dressed up with breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese), and carrots.  As you can tell, my little four burner stove isn't quite large enough for the amount of food we made.  All of that was being kept warm by the heat coming off of the oven roasting the turkey.  On top of all that and the turkey, we also had stuffing and cranberry sauce.  It was quite the feast.  Of course, the turkey was started so late that we ended up eating crazy late, but it was totally worth it.  We snacked on round one of the meal while watching Turkey Hollow and went through round two towards the end.

I'll be honest, I expected to put half of what we made away for later.  Instead we ended up eating most of it.  There were no potatoes left, only about a single serving of green beans, not enough corn to save, a decent amount of cranberry sauce, and small bowls of both stuffing and carrots.  Of course, there was a decent amount of turkey, but the leftovers only lasted us one more day.  I didn't plan for that at all.  I mean, we are a big family, so that's something, but those kids can really put away some food!

As the weekend went on, we decided it was time to finish the tree.  Out came the ornaments and the lights for the little tree and we went to town.  We started with the big tree.  We don't have a lot of ornaments for the big tree yet, so only the front got finished, and we don't have a tree skirt or anything fancy, but it turned out pretty well.  Most of the ornaments on the tree are handmade.  I even have a few that are possibly older than I am that my mom made.  My mom gave them to me last year when she heard I needed ornaments for my tree.  I'm surprised at just how much coverage we have on the whole thing.  I was expecting it to be far more sparse.

Eventually I'd like to get to the point where the big tree is decorated with nothing but ornaments that were made by the family.  That would really make me happy.  That's a tall order if I were just going to keep it to the immediate family, but there are some nice pieces that will stay from my extended family as well.  I just really like knowing that the ornaments each have a history, they were made by someone and that makes them special.  That means a lot to me.  I'd even be happy to extend that to friends who are close enough to be family.  Whatever gets the tree covered with pieces from important people in our lives.

The little tree, on the other hand, doesn't have the same flair.  Its branches are small, which means it can't hold the heavy ornaments the other tree can.  Instead of going for handcrafted ornaments, we've opted for some cheap ones with glitter on them.  The lights are a bit large and heavy for the little tree, but it definitely looks pretty.  They change colors gradually between blue and white.  Between the colors and the lights, we've dubbed that tree "the Frozen tree."

Last year we had four trees, the big one, the Frozen tree, "the owl tree," and "the weird tree."  Each kid had a tree of their own where their presents sat.  This year we're going to be doing the same, with some modifications.  Each of the kids has picked their "tree."  I use that term loosely because Creeper decided he didn't want a tree this year.  He wants to use his Christmas cactus instead.  Link is getting "the weird tree," which is nothing more than an overgrown bonsai style tree.  that poor tree has taken a lot of abuse and kind of looks more like a Charlie Brown tree these days.  The big tree goes to Pinkie, just like last year.  The Frozen tree goes to Bear, since Bear was the one who selected everything to make it the Frozen tree in the first place.  Finally, "the owl tree," which is another Norfolk Island Pine with a glow in the dark owl post stuck in the pot, belongs to the adults that will be celebrating Christmas with us this year.

Family Traditions, Or Lack There Of

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  We're not doing the usual big thing everyone else does.  Instead we plan on having a Thanskgiving/Christmas season change.  We're going to be setting up all of our Christmas decorations while eating turkey and enjoying other holiday foods.  This is new for us.  Usually we end up going somewhere or hosting our own Thanksgiving, but this year is different.  We're spending it at home with lots of food to anticipate having.

I'm actually kind of looking forward to this.  It's kind of fun to break tradition.  We had very strict "no Christmas before Thanksgiving" rules in our family growing up, so it's fun to be able to buck tradition and do something so different.

It's not just that tradition that's been shifted.  We have a tradition of setting the house up for Christmas on Black Friday instead of shopping.  This year we've got a birthday party to go to, and Pinkie and Link are going to be staying overnight.  We're not going to be able to do it that night and include everything, and we don't want to push it too far into the weekend.  We're definitely ready for Christmas around here.

Of course, it's not hard to be ready for Christmas.  We've already gotten so many offers to help with Christmas for the kids.  It's hard not to be ready for Christmas when we're already talking about what the kids want.

So what do the kids want for Christmas?  Pinkie is really craving some new art supplies.  She's always been the artist in the family.  She's also dying for Pokemon Sun.  I know she's not going to be reading this, so saying she'll be getting the game for Christmas is safe, for now.  Link wants anything Minecraft, as does Creeper (no surprise there).  Bear want's everything DC Superhero Girls.  All three of them are going to be getting Animal Crossing A New Leaf, that way they can play together.  Aside from the games, you'll just have to wait and see what they get for Christmas until then!

On top of it all, we found out that Kiwi Crate offers four different crate products.  Technically they've got five because there was a thing about a newborn box.  Obviously I don't need to worry about a newborn box.  We're thinking of getting the Koala Box for Bear, since it's for ages 3-4, even though it'll be for kids younger than Bear halfway through the year.  I don't think six months of the wrong craft will really be a problem.  The Kiwi Box is for kids 5-8, and that would be perfect for Creeper.  Then there's a Doodle Box of art supplies which would be perfect for Pinkie, and a Tinker Box, which would be fantastic for Link.  Both are for 9+, so that suits their ages too.  We really want to do a year's subscription.  While it's a decent amount of money, I have a feeling they'll get more attention than a magazine subscription.  If it works out we may decide to do it again every year until they kids are grown.  At that point we'll probably go back to more conventional gifts.

As you can see, I'm already ready for Christmas this year.  If it wasn't for Thanksgiving being tomorrow, I'd already be dragging out the decorations and setting up the tree.  Clearly I'm going to be ready to jump on this first thing tomorrow!

Pup Pal, Minecraft, and Mom's Night Out

Last night I got a call from Bear.  "Mama!  Mama!  I can't move now!"  I had no idea what to expect when I was called to see the silly why it was Bear couldn't move.  It could be anything with these kids.  I never know what to expect.

This is what I saw.  I guess this was Nika's revenge for all the times Bear has laid on the dogs.  Bear is always trying to lay on the dogs, or sit on them, or cuddle them.  Sometimes they're not really a fan.  Nika, in particular, doesn't like when people lay on her.  However, Nika has no problems laying on me when I'm in a chair, pretending to be a lap dog.

Now Bear couldn't move.  It was a cute moment.  She's not usually one to cuddle with the kids.  She prefers to keep her cuddling to my feet, or putting her head on my bed and looking pathetic.  It was wonderful to see her snuggled up with Bear.  I think she's really getting comfortable with the children.  Besides, Bear has always been her favorite.

It's funny to see the way she is with Bear.  I guess it's all the time the three of us walk together.  Even when Bear is in the stroller she likes to keep her head even with the seat, that way she can check on her kid as often as need be.  If Bear is upset and crying, she's always the first to respond.  Though she's supposed to be my dog, I can't be upset about the way she's bonding with the kids.

As for today, it's been a quiet day.  The kids have sat around playing Minecraft.  Actually, if I must be honest, Pinkie, Link, and Creeper have been sitting around playing Minecraft.  Bear is still too little to play, but that doesn't mean cuddling with Pinkie is out of the question.  They're playing in creative mode, building their own city.

I almost wish we'd had Minecraft when we were still homeschooling.  It's a great way for the kids to be creative.  They've also been playing all afternoon while getting along perfectly well.  I'm sure when we homeschooled this would have been some great time for too, but it's especially good to see now.  The kids fight a lot more now that they're in school.

I have to wonder if the fighting is a factor of how little they see each other now.  They used to see each other all day every day.  Now they only spend time together in the few brief hours after school.  Since their arrival home is so staggered, they barely have time with Creeper, who seems to be having the hardest time with all of this.  It's hard on them.  They did so much better over the summer when they had all day together.  It's sad to see them so distant from each other, but moments like this remind me that it wasn't always this way.  I hope we have more of them in the future.

And on a completely not kid related note, I got to go out and have a new experience this weekend.  I was brought out to the range by a friend of mine.  This was the first time I've ever used a firearm.  From everything I can tell, I didn't do too badly at it, as I'm sure you can see.

We use some regular paper targets so I could get used to it, then we got some zombie targets, just for fun.  I had a really hard time hitting anything but the center of the target.  It was a challenge to try and hit the other figures, but I definitely feel that if "Z Day" were to come upon us, I'd be qualified to deal with the incoming zombie hoard.  Of course, not owning a firearm, that could be more challenging, but you get the idea.

Now all the kids want to go with me next time.  I think Bear, Creeper, and Link are still to young to want to take with next time, but Pinkie could probably go.  Instead of getting to go, the kids decided on where the zombie targets would hang.  Now they're posted on either side of the television, that way the kids can see them while playing their games.  It's definitely something I'll do again.

Even The Most Mundane Things.

Today was just one of those errand days, you know the kind, the ones where you've got to do something seemingly boring.  Today's mission was a trip to the pharmacy.  It's about a 3 mile walk, round trip, so right about normal for what the kids are used to.  Pinkie was at an overnight, so we just had Bear, Creeper, and Link.  They love having the opportunity to go for walks, even if it's something that promises to be boring.  I suppose I should have learned by now, even walks are never boring with these kids.  They end up being the source of crazy made up games and wild stories.  This trip was certainly no exception to that rule.  They had quite the time chatting away.  Bear in particular had all kinds of stories to tell.

The weather was beautiful out.  While we started with jackets on, it quickly got warm enough that we didn't need to wear them anymore.  Considering it's November, we're all glad we've still got the warm weather.  It's only a matter of time before it's too cold and snowy to enjoy being outside for a walk.  We're going to try and enjoy every moment of it we can.  I can foresee a number of walks like this in our future, at least until the weather starts to turn.

Getting out always means Bear has to be in top style.  Out of all the kids, Bear's the only one that cares at all about looks.  Today's look was complete with a hat I made, something that's become a constant accessory every time we leave the house.  The Frozen sunglasses matched with the shoes.  It was quite the look.

This has been something we've had to get used to with Bear.  All of the other kids have had their own quirky senses of style, generally sending the message of "don't care what I wear."  Bear, on the other hand, is a total fashionista.  This has been quite the experience, and sometimes means it takes a bit to get moving out the door.

The tiger you see here has been with us for some time now.  That was gotten for Creeper when he was still little.  Today he decided to come along for the ride.  It was fun to hear the kids all enjoy our little tag-along.  The big tragedy of the day was the tiger, named Ra-Ra, falling from Bear's lap in the stroller and getting run over.  Thankfully it was only the tail, and Bear was able to "poof" it back to healthy again.  This meant for a story about the tiger's adventures, which was particularly funny.

No trip out is complete without hungry kids commenting that they wanted lunch.  We joked about how the only way they'd get to have lunch out is if they worked in the kitchen to earn the money to pay for it.  We were going to barter them in exchange for pizza.  They all seemed to find this a funny concept and were arguing over who got sold to the pizza parlor so the rest of us could eat.  I was really surprised they didn't volunteer the dog to work as a dish washer!  She'd do such a good job.  Instead we ended up doing the traditional thing and actually paying for the pizza, of course.

Still, this gave the kids an opportunity to think about what it actually takes to get food.  You don't just walk in and order a pizza.  The money has to come from somewhere, so how do you earn your money.  What is labor really worth?  We didn't get into a serious conversation about it or anything, but they did talk about how much pizza costs and whether or not we'd have enough money.  A part of me really wants to shield them from the idea of their parents needing money and how much things cost.  I don't want them to worry.  At the same time, they may value what they have more if they actually have to think about how expensive everything really is.

We all really enjoyed our time at the pizza parlor.  We went to a little local joint, because those are always the best.  The kids each got to pick out a soda.  While it's cheaper to just get a 2 liter, it's a hassle to pick something everyone likes.  Since this was a special treat, why not make it more special.  It's not like we get soda every day.  Even I splurged and had some, breaking my almost two week streak of having no soda, but we were all getting spoiled, so I figured why not?  I can always go right back to having no soda again.  If we keep this up we might end up a soda free house, and then it will really be a special treat.

The kids got their own pepperoni pizza, with more than enough left over for dinner.  They probably would have eaten more, but we got a huge batch of french fries to go with it, which were happily devoured.  There's something special about pizza parlor french fries.  They always tend to be the best.  The kids commented on how incredibly good my salad looked, but none of them wanted to try any.  I know if Pinkie were there she would have devoured my tomatoes and olives.  Overall, it was a fantastic little adventure for our family.

Reviving The Blog

Okay, I'll admit it, I did the bad blogger thing.  Four years ago I just lost the bug and stopped blogging.  Since then I decided not to pick it up again because, well, I just didn't feel inspired.  Part of that was finding another place to blog where I felt happier communicating with the world, but also because I just didn't feel like keeping this one up anymore.

Now I'm in a place where I want to start documenting the cool stuff the kids and I do again, like the trip Pinkie (formerly Bunny Boo) and I took to the art museum with my sister for her birthday.  We don't get out and do a lot of cool stuff anymore now that the kids are in school, but it would be fun to get it all started up again.

One of the first big trips we took as a family after our big move was going out on a hike.  It's a location we plan to go hiking at again, as soon as our car is on the road and once the weather's nice again.  I used to hike there all the time.  The kids particularly loved it out there.  They've always been big on nature.  As you can see, they really loved being able to kick back and sunbathe.

That's one thing we've always loved doing as a family, getting out in the warm weather and enjoying a good trip into nature.  I can't wait for opportunities to get hiking again.  Of course, coming into winter that might be a bit trickier.  Walks to the library just aren't the same.  However spring will be here sooner than we know and we'll be able to get out there and hiking again before long.  It's great exercise and helps build life-long healthy habits.  It's something I always loved as a kid and I love being able to share with my kids.  Best of all, aside from cost of transportation, hiking is generally completely free.  That makes it one of the best opportunities for family time out there!

For Pinkie's last birthday, as I mentioned, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts.  They were holding an exhibit on one of Pinkie's greatest influences, Picasso.  The whole thing was a surprise, but she was super excited when we got there.  I could probably write a whole post on the whole experience, but seeing as this is just a catch up, I figure I should stick to the fact that the whole trip was awesome and a huge success.

Pinkie seemed really inspired by that experience, and it's one we're going to have to repeat again some time soon.  It's just hard to find a time to take her all the way into the city to go with school and everything else.

Pinkie has grown up so much and really come into her own.  She's starting to pick up skills as a writer and wants to get more experience with it.  Maybe next time I can have her write about the trip in her own words.  That's one thing that's nice about having a blog for family adventures.  Once the whole family is old enough, there's no reason they can't participate in the writing as well!  It would be such a good experience for them.

We also decided we were going to try our luck at gardening this year.  Bear was the most excited about that one.  We got some supplies at Home Depot and put together a lovely little garden.  We set the whole thing up on our back porch, taking up almost all of it.  It was impressive to see the way everything climbed around and overgrew.  Our porch became a little Garden of Eden.

The kids all wanted to help with this project, from carrying pots and containers to planting and watering.  Their favorite part was when the plants began to flower, showing their hard work was finally paying off.  We had some really great talks about the life cycle of plants.  Almost every day they wanted to come outside to see the progress, and every day they were so excited to see how much everything had grown.  I didn't think they'd see terribly much difference from day to day, but they always swore they did.  Best of all, there was always something to discover, from the mushrooms that grew when it rained to the different colors of flowers for each different color of bean in the garden.

Of course, the favorite part of it all was getting to eat the final product.  We didn't have much in the way of results this year.  We had some problems with pesky squirrels getting into our tomatoes.  The beans were fine, but the other plants didn't really produce much.  We learned a lot for next year.  However the foods we did get were fantastic.  As you can clearly see, Pinkie's favorite part was the tomatoes.  We grew a few varieties, but the Lemon Boy and the cherry tomatoes were her all time favorite.

Some day we'd love to have a place where we could have a large enough garden to keep us fed all summer.  I won't put myself under the illusion that we'll be able to keep ourselves fed through winter.  Putting up that much food would be difficult.  With four kids in the house we eat a lot of food.  However, I'm definitely happy that they gravitate towards the healthy stuff.  They'd pick garden fresh vegetables over junk food just about any day of the week.  That's how it should be, right?  At least I know they'll grow up healthy.

The summer brought with it a lot more adventures, like going to see the fireworks in the city, something that was a tradition every year.  We went two years in a row, but last year just wasn't what it usually was.  The fireworks were held really late.  Bear and Creeper (formerly Piggy) almost slept through the whole thing!  The wait was worth it though.  Also, I was able to score this rare picture of Link.  He's not a fan of having his picture taken, so that was a real tough thing to manage.

The fireworks display itself was beautiful.  It was every bit as epic as I'd hoped it would be.  The kids, though tired from the long wait, loved watching the fireworks and the way they reflected on the river.  We may not have a chance to get into the city for them again in the future, if they even continue to run it, but this was a memory we were glad to have.  We even had a friend along with us, making it extra special.  That whole trip was quite the adventure, but in the end it's a night we were definitely glad we had.  The kids even talked about it being the best night ever for a while to come.

Then there's Pinkie's newfound love of role playing games.  She's gotten involved with the D&D club at her school as well as playing in games with the group of adults that plays at our house every week.  She was so excited when my friend and I took her into the city to get her first set of dice for game.  She came home with her own dice bag.

Once we were done at the game store we went for a walk around town.  She said the best part of town was the rainbow sidewalks.  If memory serves they were painted that way just after gay marriage was legalized in all fifty states.  Pinkie's become a part of the GSA at school as well, which seems to be something that's become really important to her.  This might be another good thing for her to write about, when she gets a chance, all of it, actually.  I can imagine how much she'd have to say about her involvement in clubs at school, games, as well as going into town whenever we've gone.  I bet she'd be quite the writer.  This could really be a fun experience for her!

Then there was the trip to the aquarium with Bear.  Again, Sable (the friend who went on all our other adventures) took us on this one.  Bear was so excited about this trip.  It necessitated finding the perfect outfit, because you can't make the trip into town without the perfect outfit.  This was also Bear's first solo adventure with the adults.  This was a very big day.

Though the aquarium was crowded, Bear ran from fish exhibit to fish exhibit.  The major excitement early on was finding Nemo.  Then there was an exclamation of "I found Dory!"  Then all the other kids at the aquarium started shouting they found Dory too.  Bear felt really proud to be the first one to find Dory.

This trip was talked about for weeks, which is something impressive when a four year old is involved.  Typically Bear moves on to the next thing pretty rapidly, only bringing out the adventures when something inspires it, like they day we went apple picking.  The fact that this stuck out so much really said a lot for how much fun it really was.

Yeah, we've been up to a lot in the past few years.  The kids have grown up quite a bit.  We've seen a lot of changes in that time too.  In all this time we've made friends and lost them or grown apart.  We've gone on several adventures.  There was a lot of unstructured fun too, as you can see with Link playing on the tire swing in the back yard.  It's been quite the amazing few years.

Now it's time to get back to the roots and start talking about the new adventures we're going to have.  There will be new challenges and new interesting stories.  Hopefully Pinkie will start to write some of her own entries.  Maybe in a couple of years Link will want to join her.  This could be a brilliant account of everything we do together, a way for our friends and family to keep up on what we're doing, even if they can't see us all the time.  It's a snapshot into our world, complete with pictures sometimes.  There is so much happening in our lives, so much going on, that even having no one else read it, we'll be able to look back as a family and see where we've been all this time.  That alone will be wonderful.