The Beginning of Thanksgiving Week

The first of an entire week off from school and work. I was excited to sleep in. Since the time change we decided to just stick with the time and so with the change we are now getting up at 4:30 a.m. Yes, that is way too early. But it’s working. It also means I live for Saturday when I can sleep in. Two weekends someone (different people) decided that it was urgent and needed to call us at eight in the morning. It wasn’t urgent. It could have waited. It could have been texted. I told Alex he is to turn his phone off in the morning for the rest of the week off.

So, seeing as it is Thanksgiving this next week it is also our family’s tradition of “Pie Week”! If you are new here, pie week is where we enjoy all the pies. Thanksgiving day is not enough time to enjoy all the wonderful pies. One is always stuffed with the main meal and we never get to try all the different kinds. So probably about 15 years now for Thanksgiving week, from Sunday to Sunday, we have a different pie every single night. Do I get tired of making a pie a day? Yes. But I do it anyways. This year I’m trying to be a bit more organized and I made four crusts and pre-baked two of them. The filling is the easy part. So I’m a little ahead of the game. Tomorrow’s pie is banana cream and I made it today because we have a family Thanksgiving dinner to go to and won’t have time.

I spent most of the day cleaning and cooking and baking. But I’ll thank myself for prepping it all when I have pretty much zero time to do any of it tomorrow.

While I was working, my daughters went with their aunt. She is so good about taking my kids (and all her nieces and nephews) out for their birthdays. They all went and got their nails painted. They were out and about and I was babysitting her dog.

Poor thing got a cut paw and needed stitches. He was still loopy from the sedative. So he slept on the floor in the way for a few hours. My dog was unsure and my cats wanted nothing to do with him.

Tomorrow’s plan is to go have a family dinner with the in-laws and when we get home it’s finally time to decorate for Christmas. I’ve been meaning to get it all up for a week but life happens and decorating didn’t. My front room is so full of bins you can’t see the floor. I don’t like decorating that much but the kids have said quite a few times in the past weeks how much they just love Christmas. They love the snow, the decorations, the lights, the music, the feel of the season. So I’m going to do my best to make sure they get that experience. Wish me luck.

We Survived Thanksgiving

Good morning Monday! Okay, that exclamation mark was too much for a Monday. I just want to sleep for a week.

Thanksgiving is over and we are now rushing to the Christmas season. Have I done my shopping yet? No.

So the past week or so we’ve been busy. The kids have all had the sickness and hopefully that is finally over. The kids all had pukes and poops and it was touch and go whether we would be able to go to my mom’s house for Thanksgiving. We did end up going though one kid felt sick one of the nights. He kept himself isolated and got over it without incident. Thank goodness.

The whole week was a lot of work. Alex took work off only to work. We had to get the kids off the driveway and we all pitched in and got them moved to the back yard. Now the smaller logs are in an unruly pile in the backyard and need to be stacked. We were going to split them all but that is an insane amount of work so we’ll just chop as we go.

My sister had to drop her kids off with her ex- husband and we prayed for those girls the whole time. The poor dears. Their dad is an abusive narcissistic germaphobe and one of the girls was so stressed she got sick. You can imagine that it didn’t go well for her. To bad the courts aren’t fair and people get away with lying. I only mention this because it was in the back of my mind a lot this past week. Thankfully the girls are back with their mom and don’t have to go see their dad again until spring.

We had second Thanksgiving yesterday. My sister-in-law was sick over Thanksgiving (sounds like what my kids went through) and wanted to have a meal still so we all went over. All of Alex’s family in the area was there along with some of his sister’s friends were there. It was a good meal and a good visit. So we got both families in this year. Did that mean we’re off the hook for next year?

The kids all played outside most of the time. It was almost 50°F and for late November that is unusual here. I decided that snow is overrated and can stick to the mountains. I’d take a 50° winter. Heck, I’d take 33° winter if it meant no snow. Can you tell I’m over snow? Anyways, it was beautiful and sunny and relatively warm and it was nice to sit outside and to have the kids be outside.

My sister-in-law is renting a very large house with a huge yard and I will never got the life of me understand why houses with lots of bedrooms and space always have tiny kitchens and tiny dining rooms. Always. Where are the people supposed to fit and eat that live in these big houses? Mine included. I would love to design my own home and make sure there is plenty of room for people to gather.

I need to get going for the day. The kids have been home for nine days and I need to take today to help the house recover from that and the Thanksgiving holiday. It is going to be so fun. Please tell me you read the sarcasm in that last statement. I rolled my eyes when I wrote it as well. It’s going to be a long day and week. I have three more birthdays in the next two weeks and my in-laws are coming over. And all the Christmas holiday festivities are ramping up so December is going to be a challenge. Wish me luck and I’ll do the same for you.