Thanksgiving was joyful as usual this year, the boys had the added bonus of having feasts and whatnot at school. Here they are as a pilgrim and an indian (I love it!).
Dressed up for dinner with the Penrods
The kiddo table--this year Dylan and Becky were able to join us, so awesome!
And might I say the food was fantastic. My SIL does an apple cider brined turkey that is just fantastic. In fact I have a free turkey from then still in the freezer and the recipe--next week is starting to sound yummy. And here's Claire prepping for Black Friday! I left immediately from dinner to camp out at WalMart. I even took my slice of pie in a nifty container and ate it sitting on the floor in the Mexican food aisle waiting for the 2 screen car DVD player. (Yes we already have DVD in the car, but it requires headphones and we have broken so many headphones that is was more cost effective to just buy the new one with built in speakers. It doesn't work quite as well, but it functions. And added bonus Claire has her own screen with her rear facing [until 2, seriously!?] car seat). They had 2 phases of the sale at WalMart, 10 pm and midnight so we (Hillary and I) camped out for different products at different times and I was also busy finding the same deals online (on Lowell's phone) with free shipping so I could avoid some of the mayhem. And yes, there was mayhem. Next we went to Kohl's but the line was too ridiculous so we hid the item I wanted and then camped out in the car for a little while shopping the online Toys R Us sale. We cruised over to JCPenney's and did okay on their toy sale and got the fun and free snow globes that my boys absolutely adored until they both broke them within a day. Back to Kohl's the place had cleared out and shopping was easy although annoying due to the persistent and aggressive pleas to get their credit card. That was why the line was so ridiculous earlier and after I pointed that out to the cashier--still trying to push the card--the debate became a bit heated. Let's just say I won't shop at Kohl's any more. I think we got breakfast in there somewhere too and then went home and crashed for a bit (before I was on call at work). Thanks Hill for being my shopping buddy, we really did good.
After a nap we met up with Dyl, Becky, and Dinda and made our traditional turkey cookies. Or as usual the kids played wii while the adults fussed over them, but better than usual my candy specialist SIL and my soon to be chef SIL did all the work while I unwrapped Reese's. And so they turned out pretty.
The Sunday after Thanksgiving we had the Dodenbier family turkey night and that was also delicious and fun.
Claire eating Jonny's left overs
Then I still can't believe the deal I got on the Santa train. So we have a fairly close train that runs a Polar Express all winter. It is over $100 for my family to go but I was really considering just me and the boys going because their days of believing are numbered. Then I happened to notice early in December they had a can food drive Santa train. For less than $20 and the spare cans we had in the pantry our whole family could go, and it was shorter which is in fact a big plus for our restless kids in a small space.
And hey, we picked up Santa half way along and he was great with the kids. They were so thrilled. And they gave them each a BIG bag of treats (probably worth more than we spent on their fare).
Of which Claire picked out the yogurt pretzels and proceeded to get us all very dirty.
Then we hurried over to the Dutch store to meet up with my family and Sinter Klaas and Black Pete.
Good times, what a fun full day. The kiddos went to bed and then Sinter Klaas came!
Building a zhu zhu village (thanks to Toys R Us, buy 1 get 2 free sale plus they charged me for the cheapest items. Holy cow I got a deal on all that stuff).
No doubt about it, sissy loves her candy.
Traditionally we put up our Christmas tree on Dutch Christmas
Later that week we had our twin friends over to make gingerbread houses. I am still crazy enough to insist on real gingerbread to the extent that I will bake enough for a dozen kids. The boxed stuff is just not edible and I don't like the graham cracker cheat.
You guess, which one did I "help" on and which one was the boys'?
We got a one month pass to Classic Fun Center and decided to try out the Orem version. It was a mistake, Sandy is WAY better, but we still had fun.
Claire, little miss accessory decided the tree skirt made a quite lovely cape:
Trying new things with her lengthening hair. It is pretty fun but the curls are either crazy or matted if I don't work them. Nothing easy with this little gal.
Love the monkey hat
Elf on the shelf joined us after Thanksgiving again this year and found plenty of mischief and new silly hiding places. The boys named him Joseph. This was one of my favorites, he painted a Christmas tree on the wall. And I just washed it off last week, the washable paint came off super easy.
We had out first snow fall in early December (and haven't seen a whole lot since).
Claire was not sure about the cold white stuff.
Okay, part of me really wants to jump ahead to what's going on now, but baby steps. I am just going to update a little at a time so I don't get overwhelmed. Stay tuned, hopefully I'll get there quickly.
2 comments:
PRECIOUS!
So I had typed a long comment to you, but somehow in the word verify it got lost. Anyway, thanks for the comment on my blog. You do so much for your kids; they are lucky to have you! How did you get 3 brown-eyed kids? Your little lady is adorable; she's grown up so fast!
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