A Thanksgiving Surprise!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

From our house to yours, I hope your Thanksgiving was as wonderful as ours was.  The food was yummy and I am glad everything turned out.  I always have turkey issues normally it's not done on time. Well this year it was done 2 hours early according to the button that popped out but I didn't trust it and kept on cooking it and it was just fine.  Aaron's parents joined us this year so it was a small gathering but very fun.  We wrote what we were thankful for and did some art leaf pictures -- all 8 of us.  We ate pie and ice cream and cookies even though we thought we couldn't eat anymore. 

Addison took this photo of me pulling out my pumpkin pie yesterday.  I've spent this entire week cooking our meal little by little and thinking about how this could be our last Thanksgiving in this house.  Although I am ready to move to our other house, it makes me so sad to think of leaving this one.  It has been our home since we were married and served us well, seen us through our struggles with infertility and bringing home triplets and then Reesey.  As I look around, we finally have this house decorated the way we like it and now we are starting over.  Don't get me wrong I know that many more exciting memories will be made in our new home and we can spread out a bit there too but good-byes are hard even with houses.

The girls and I made these cute napkin rings yesterday for our Thanksgiving table.  They turned out so cute for using toilet paper rings and scraps of paper that I hoard (that my sister always makes fun of me for saving so much of that kind of stuff).  I love doing stuff like that with the kids.  It's so much fun now that they can help do little things like this with me.

The kids dressed up this week as Indians for a Thanksgiving feast at school.  They look so cute!  

I made the same paper bag turkey that I did last year.  Aaron "carved" it.  Ethan said "I hope it's cheese inside".  But it was the same as last time:  popcorn.

The yummy food, the togetherness, and the memories made for a great day.  But I think the best part of the day happened by chance.  Aaron left to have a drink with a friend for a bit and I decided it would be fun to put in the video of the triplets when they were babies.  We've never watched it.  It's very long and mostly a camera in front of a babies face for like 5 straight minutes with me talking in high pitched/annoying baby talk then moving on to the next baby.  And then suddenly there it was:  a couple of times I recorded the kids while my dad was here.  And I got to see him and hear him talk, just briefly, but he was there just like he was every Thanksgiving.  Then I remembered this photo taken on Thanksgiving 7 years ago when we only had 2 babies home and Ethan was still in the hospital:

I'm counting all my blessings this year, even my dad's "surprise" visit!  Thanks, Dad!

Off to See the Wizard!

I almost deleted my blog.  I never ever update it.  Seems like another obligation rather than a memory keeper.  But I think I'll give it another go and try to get back on track.  We just celebrated all the kids' birthday with one big Wizard of Oz bash.  That's what our family costume theme was this year too:  The Wizard of Oz!  The kids were so cute!

We had 15 kids at their party and we played a lot of games/activities.  It was fun (at least to me).  But I didn't think ahead and get very many party pictures.

 I made our pinata again and this time EVERYONE got a turn at bat.  It was hard to break this time around.

 This is Caden running in the witch relay race ... it looks more Harry Potterish to me but still cute!

Reese was the only one that wanted to wear her costume at the party.  She has loved the Wizard of Oz for a couple years.  She was so excited for Halloween and their party .... she still hasn't had her birthday yet .... couple more weeks and she'll be FOUR (how can that be?).





I worked on the party for weeks (as usual). Seriously I do love doing it.  I love to think of ways to make things without buying them.  The favor bags this year were made out of grocery sacks .... yes, I weaved 15 baskets from grocery sacks.  I know, people are rolling their eyes, it didn't really take that long and it was free. 

The rainbow cake turned out at 11:30 the night before it didn't seem like it was going to work.  Each layer wasn't coming out the pan so nicely.  I sure thought it would fall apart when I cut into it but it didn't and kids liked it and it tasted good.

I really love doing these parties and I hope the kids remember them but even if they don't, I know I will.