Jack-in-the-Box

This poor boy. I don't know why we do stuff like this to him. But we do. And he kindly complies.

Thanksgiving Tidbits

I usually do a pretty good job of taking pictures of the holidays at our house, but I am bad about getting the camera out once we've left. This year I did a little better.

Alice liked hanging out with Grandpa today.

Jack had a great time playing soccer with his cousins.

A rare shot of me and Jay. I realize that the lighting is bad and part of me is missing, but we hardly ever have pictures of us together, so I thought I'd keep it.

Alice and Alex--the oldest and youngest cousins.

This year was the first time since 2001 that we have lived in town during the holidays, so after two dinners (and one load of laundry at my mom and dad's after I spilled scalloped potatoes on my lap on the way to the first dinner), we headed back to our house and had the kids bathed and jammied and ready for the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving show. It is a nice change!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since it's the weekend before Thanksgiving, we had our annual family Thanksgiving dinner here at home today. I still haven't unpacked the box that has all of my holiday menus in it, so I had to rely on the picture of my planning page I posted last year. This year we had plain old pumpkin pie for dessert. Jack helped out.

The cooking continued this morning. Alice was taking a break here, but she got up with me several times in the night to change the water in which the turkey was defrosting. I forgot about defrosting it until late last night, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out. Also, this year Jay was nice enough to pick up the turkey for me. Unfortunately, there was no weight anywhere on it, we don't have a scale, and I am terrible at estimating weight. He told me to compare it to Alice, but that was difficult since Alice isn't rock hard and hanging in a mesh bag. Jay's guess was about 20 pounds (more than Alice weighs), so I went with that and it turned out well.

Jack made us some decorations.

The final product!

Tonight Jack had his first choir program. Both sets of grandparents came, as well as my grandma, her sister, and my aunt. Jack was very excited to see them all there!

This week we are eating leftovers, unpacking some more, starting work, and trying to get in the Christmas mood. We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Changes

Several people noticed Jack's recent haircut, so I thought I would point out some changes in Alice, too. Above is the day she turned four months old, not long after we moved.

I feel a little bad that so many of Alice's pictures are in her stroller. We really do get her out--I promise! She's generally pretty happy in it if we're outside. Inside is another story. When I walk the track during Jack's gymnastics class, I'm usually carrying 16 pounds of extra weight.

Here she is modeling the beautiful sweater my friend Tracy made for her. I also love how both kids look so goofy in this shot.

The bouncy chair is still an essential. It's one of the few places she'll nap. We do have to strap her in now, though, because she can arch her back and twist around.

She's discovered her feet.

I l.o.v.e. these legs.

Alice went to her first Halloween party dressed as a white tiger.

See? She really does like the stroller outside!

Here she is on the day she turned five months old. Naps on the bed are rare and she usually naps for 30 minutes or less three or four times a day.

Alice is more interested in toys and things now. These animal cards were a big hit.

Don't let this picture fool you. She has no clue how to drink from a cup yet. She does enjoy chewing on it, though.

She got her first rice cereal this week, too.

She's been rolling over both ways for a while now.

She and Jack absolutely adore each other. He loves to entertain her and he is her favorite thing to watch. All he has to do is walk by and she will start laughing--which cracks him up, and sets up a crazy cycle. We may be in for it in a few years!

Fall Pictures

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I don't want to be a blogger who only posts slide shows, but when I took the pictures off my camera today, there were almost 600, starting with the weekend before we moved almost two months ago. There's no way I would have time to crop and shrink all those pictures, so here are a few of the highlights. Now that we've got the computer up and running and things are beginning to settle down, I am hoping to be back with more regular updates!

The Journey

Make a Smilebox slideshow

"A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles."

--Tim Cahill

Books to Treasure

Last night we went to the Books to Treasure program to see Brad Sneed, an illustrator who has done the pictures for three Five in a Row books (The Bravest of Us All, The Pumpkin Runner, and Higgins Bend Song and Dance).

He showed the different steps involved in illustrating a book.

He also read from a couple of books and drew a picture.

The wait to get a book signed was about an hour and a half. I held Alice the whole time and Jack resorted to resting on the floor. I would have joined him if I could.

We finally reached the front around 9:30.

It was worth the wait! Jack and Alice now have two more signed books to add to their collection. I'm looking forward to seeing who they bring in next year!

Happy Veterans Day

Happy Veterans Day to my favorite veteran!

Since I Didn't Have the Camera Anyway...

I thought I'd go ahead and blog about our nature study group today. I actually did have the camera, but I didn't realize it, so no pics and still no way to upload them yet even if I did have some.

Today we met for the first time with a nature study group my friend Rachel told me about. Before leaving the house, I mentioned to Jay that Alice had not pooped in at least a day and a half. That part is important later in the story. Anyway, we headed out to a local nature center and got there right on time. We were the first ones there, though, so I thought we had missed the group.

After people started arriving, we headed out onto the trails. Alice's stroller didn't do too bad out there in the wilderness, especially considering it is just a regular old stroller built for trips to the mall and other tamer environments. Early on, we saw a deer, which was pretty surprising since we had a pretty good-sized group of kids. Jack spotted some fungus on a tree and asked what it was. One of the older boys told him it was a fungus. "What's a bungus?" Jack asked? That's my boy. Then we saw a hawk (I think it was a hawk. I am not so good at birds. It was a hawkish-looking bird, at least.) circling around overhead. "I think that means we're going to die soon!" my friend's daughter announced.

All of this time, Alice was riding in her stroller and was pretty content. When she really got fussy, I went ahead and unstrapped her and was planning on carrying her. Then I noticed that she had pooped. As in, covered-from-her-waist-to-her-feet-in-poop-and-we-may-have-to-burn-these-pants pooped. Did I mention that we were in the woods? So Alice got stripped down to nothing and seemed to be quite content to find herself completely naked in the woods. Somehow I managed to undress her, change her diaper, and re-dress her while she was in her carseat. (Note to self: clean the carseat tomorrow.) After all of that, she was pretty happy to ride again and I was worn out.

Next week we will meet up with the group again at a different park. I am hoping that Alice is a little easier on me!