Giving Thanks

As today is Thanksgiving, it seems appropriate to officially give thanks for all of the wonderful things that I have in my life. First, of course, is my family - I have a wonderful husband for whom I think thank my Heavenly Father every day for bringing into my life, three children who make me a better person and who I love more than I ever thought possible, and an extended family who loves and cares about us. I am thankful that Jay has a good job that he enjoys and that allows him to provide for our family. I'm thankful for good friends who make me laugh and help me get through the hard days that come around every so often. I'm thankful for good books and chocolate. And I'm thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the joy and purpose that it gives to my life.

I'd be even more thankful if some of you would take some of the leftover Thanksgiving treats off our hands. We had a wonderful dinner today (thanks Laura and Bunny!) but we have way too much pumpkin and caramel apple pie left over. I fear it's going to go to waste and our little family of five can't possibly make it through this much pie (not to mention the double batch of rolls and caramel popcorn that Jay made on Wednesday). So if you want some pie, come on over. We'll set you up!

We hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Picture Day

Every year on the day before Thanksgiving we get the kids pictures made; it's turned into kind of a Thanksgiving holiday tradition. The kids are out of school that day and Jay is typically off work, enjoying his yearly Thanksgiving Week vacation. So we make the first appointment of the day (10:00 am) and troup everyone down to the mall for a picture or two. After the pictures are made, Jay buys the kids a cookie and takes them home to change and I stay and make our purchases.

Here is the result of this years photo shoot:

They actual prints of the pictures look better than the online proofs because you can crop them and play around with the colors a bit; I like to do what they call a "dark vignette" color overlay because it makes the colors pop a bit. But you can get a general idea of how it turned out. It took quite a bit of time to get halfway decent pictures of William and Henry - they grimace more than they smile for pictures, which is too bad because William has quite a cute smile, dimples included, when he smiles naturally. Tessa was in her element, of course. She sat and smiled and smiled and did pretty much what she was supposed to do. She loved it.

As for Jay and I, at least we're done with the holiday photo shoot until next year. With all the complaining that goes on ("I don't want to wear a tie!" and "Don't use gel on my hair!" being the primary complaints from the boys) we can't do it more than once a year. Unless it's just Tessa. She'd have her picture made once a month if we let her.

...And He's Off

Jay is, that is. Off work. On vacation for a week. It's November 21st and he doesn't go back to work until Monday the 30th. Hooray! This year it's really good timing for his vacation; work has been crazy for a few weeks now and he's in need of a break.

It's been five or six years since we started the tradition of Jay taking the week of Thanksgiving off and we love it. We get alot done during this week - holiday pictures for the kids, holiday decorating, baking and making caramel popcorn are all on the agenda for the week.

We're hosting Thanksgiving for a small contingent of the Wright family this year and we're excited. Jay spent part of the day making a shopping list and looking up recipes and planning our part of the menu. I need to go shopping with him, though - Jay can be a bit of an impulse buyer when it comes to food; if he goes alone, who knows what he'll buy!

Things should be pretty relaxed around our house for the next little while. It's about time.

Lesson Learned

Tessa got a haircut today. She got one last week as well, but it wasn't very good and was very uneven. So I tried to "fix" it and, well, yeah. She got another cut today. It's fine - a bit shorter than I would like it but really, she's 3. With judicious use of hair bows, clippies and headbands, she'll look just fine.

I don't know what I was thinking when I got the scissors out. Last time I tried to "trim" Tessa's hair was two summers ago. A simple bang trim with a wiggly two year old turned into me deciding to just grow her bangs out, since I had to pull them off her face anyway as they were so short they looked silly. Oh well. Let's hope I really learned my lesson this time.

Here she is after we got home. The stylist actually did some messy ponytails with her hair, which looked really cute on her but was a nightmare to get out when it was bathtime. I'm not sure if I'll be duplicating this look or not:












Here is the back of the messy ponytail look. As cute as it was, the tangles caused lots of tears.












On a separate note, my sister LeClaire turned 40 today. Happy Birthday, LeClaire!

Tap, Tap, Tap

Now that Tessa is potty trained, including during the night, we occasionally have to get up during the night to help her in the bathroom. She doesn't just creep into our bedroom in the dark, whispering that she needs to go potty. She typically turns on the light in her bedroom, comes into our room, walks over to me (always me, even though Jay sleeps on the side of the bed closer to the door) and taps me with her finger. At least once a week I wake up to Tessa lurking in the shadows, tapping me to wake me up. It usually scares me so I jerk awake and stumble out of bed to help Tessa do her bathroom business and get back in bed. Still, at least she's waking up and going during the night if she needs to, which is better than wetting the bed. It works.

And I apparently spoke too soon regarding our health. Henry came home from school yesterday with a fever. No cough, no sore throat, no stomach ache, no stuffy nose - just a fever. And he's still got a fever so he's home from school today. Something tells me he'll be feeling fine right around lunchtime and will drive me crazy all afternoon. Because that's the kind of autumn it's been around here.

Routine...Finally!

We have finally kicked the illness that has been plaguing our poor little family. The stomach flu is history and the kids are all back at school and getting their appetites back. It's a good thing - everyone was starting to go stir crazy and it's good to be back to our normal routine.

We're kind of in the lull before the storm that is the holidays. Halloween is over, aside from residual candy left floating around, and there are still two weeks until Thanksgiving break. The weather is cooling down but it's still OK for playing outside. I'm starting to plan for Christmas shopping and getting ready for the craziness that can be Christmas.

But we're all finally well again. Life is good.

Hmph

So November isn't going as swimmingly as I had hoped. We are still battling this stomach flu off and on. Jay and Henry both stayed home on Monday and then William was home on Tuesday. Thursday morning my mom immunity wore off and I was sick all day and Henry was home again, just not feeling that great. William and Jay finally seem to be 100% and Henry is back at school today and seems to be fine. I'm feeling lots better and kind of just holding my breath - any minute now I expect Tessa to start with a stomach ache.

I have wiped down every surface of the house with Clorox wipes more times than I can count - remote controls, light switches, door handles. The windows are open to air out the house. And still it continues to cause us some issues.

Whatever happened to the 24 hour stomach flu?