Accident

My cousin Leah was killed on Friday when a semi crossed the median and hit her car. She was ten days shy of her 30th birthday.

Please send thoughts and prayers to her husband, her three little ones, her sisters and their families, and my aunt and uncle.

Adventures in the Freezer

Look what I found in the freezer when I got home from the grocery store yesterday:

Cryogenics in my very home. Who knew?

Bring on the Festivities!

I got a little sleep last night and am feeling a bit more like myself today. And so we...

...strung popcorn and cranberries onto yarn to make garland! Actually, popcorn is impossible to string. We broke like 15 pieces of popcorn with our darning needles before I finally had the brilliant idea to use packing peanuts instead. They worked much better, and I figured it was a good way to recycle a few of those crazy things. Plus the girls were thrilled that they got to eat that giant bowl of popcorn.

While the girls worked on their garlands, Kevin and I cut out this garland. Isn't is cute?

While I was hanging all of the new garland, the girls abandoned ship and went upstairs to play something elaborate with dress up clothes, stuffed animals, library books and Barbies.

Kevin was kind enough to clean up the mess above, plus the insane mess the girls made on the floor snipping paper to make sweet ornaments for the tree.

And then, since the mess was all cleaned up by someone else, I made the girls come back downstairs to make clove oranges.

We have made these every year at ECFE, and the kids have always needed help getting the cloves into the oranges. This is the first year since we became parents that everyone is too old for ECFE, but I wanted to continue the tradition. And it was fun! The girls made faces with the cloves! So creative!

That's all the time we had for crafts this evening.

Christmas is right around the corner!

"Christmas is right around the corner!"
Dana likes to share this fact with anyone who will listen. Doesn't matter if it's a friend, family member, or a complete stranger. She is incredibly excited and wants to spread the joy.

We always put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving. This year, Kevin put the tree up and I helped him string lights, and then we just let the kids have at it.

That's right-we didn't hang a single ornament. Nora, Dana and Keenan took care of that job, and they took it pretty seriously.

At first it looked sort of funny, since there were no ornaments on the top 1/4 of the tree. Then, someone had the idea to stand on a chair, and everything got a bit more evened out.

We always bring out the Christmas CDs (this year we listened to the Louis Armstrong and Friends Christmas Collection) and sip hot cocoa with marshmallows, whipped cream, colored sugar and candy canes. Bring on the sugar!

I keep meaning to decorate the rest of the house, but it's been iffy around here. I have a quadruple ear infection and it has really run me down. It's not that I suddenly have 4 ears, friends. No, I just have outer and middle infections in both ears. It's especially fun because there is so much fluid built up behind my eardrums that I can't hear at all out of my right ear. I think I heard Dana call Nora and Keenan a really bad name today but I can't be even 50% certain because I am that congested.

I am going to bed now. It IS 8:42 on a Saturday night, after all.

New Glasses

We switched Nora over to the pediatric eye specialist last week. He gave her a new prescription and she got to pick new frames.

She has been eying up these Bratz Girl frames for 3 months! She thinks she really slid one past me because I take a strong stance AGAINST Bratz Girls. But these glasses are fully clothed with nothing inappropriate exposed, and they don't have freakishly large heads, eyes or mouths. And their feet don't snap off to allow skin-tight clothing to go on easier.

The photos do not do these frames justice. They're a shiny plum purple metal with tiny rhinestone accents. They are truly adorable and she was over the moon when I picked her up at school yesterday and brought her to pick them up and have them fitted. She's been all dimples since last night.

Her old frames have really long bows that hang way below her ears, and she was self-conscious about wearing a ponytail because people would see them sticking out and she thought that looked weird. The new purple frames have normal bows that don't peek below her ears. So in addition to slipping the Bratz name past Mom, she can also go back to wearing ponytails whenever she wants. This is important to her.

Thanksgiving 2009

Our Thanksgiving started out with a really cute turkey...

Actually, it started the night before, with the pie baking activities. I like to make things as complicated as possible, so we started by roasting a sugar pumpkin. And then we had a marathon of apple peeling, which the girls absolutely loved. We have one of those apple peeler/corer/slicer things, and they love turning the crank and grabbing the spiraled apples off the end when they're done. Fun times.

I tried a new recipe this year: maple pumpkin pie. It sounded divine, but in reality was awfully sweet.

And a new apple pie recipe, too, in which you cook a caramel sauce on the stove and then pour it over the lattice top so it soaks into the top crust and goes into the filling as well. This one was pretty nice.

Nora made placemats for everyone and proceeded to re-set the table at Grandma and Grandpa's house when we arrived.

Nora thought basting the turkey was really fun, and she helped Grandma with this task.

And then some wrestling ensued. Notice the pizza paddle. I am not sure what Kevin said or did, but his parents team tackled him. Ah, the holidays.

We ended the night with some salon time. Dana soaked my entire head with detangler and then brushed it. Nora brushed out Jan's hair and put on some lipstick.

Hope your holiday was as fun-filled as ours was!

Tower and Painting

Hi! Remember us?

Sure can't wait for life to simmer down a little.

Here are a couple of photos of slower days.

Dana built this fantastic block tower. She had to stand on a stool to built it this high. These girls are still obsessed with Duplos.

My dad is building a playroom downstairs for the kids. He wanted to do something really special, and Dana suggested he build a playhouse. Perfect!

So he did. And then he invited them over to help paint the floor. He put a 2-sided chalk board on one of the walls. It's awesome!

My dad was working out of town and living in a hotel from July until November. We are SO HAPPY to have him home again. We missed him!