Thanksgiving 2010

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.
Psalm 136:1-3

The Lord certainly is good and has given us so much to be thankful for. I'm thankful for a God who cares for me, provides for me and forgives me. I'm thankful for a Savior who is my strength and my all. I'm thankful for the wonderful family He has given us and for the unconditional love they continually pour out on us.

Elizabeth, Kent, Jordan and Sophie joined us for Thanksgiving this year. It was so much fun having a house full of family. I'm thankful that Nana and Granddaddy are early risers and spent some time with Alison each morning when she rose with the sun.

I'm also thankful a little pampering and relaxation. Elizabeth graciously treated the girls to pedicures to get prepped for all of our Thanksgiving festivities. It was Alison's first time in a salon and she had a blast just sitting in the massaging chairs with us. The technician very sweetly did Alison's toes at the end, even throwing on some sparkles for her.

Thanksgiving day began with tea pastries and we watched the parade. Alison helped Aunt Sophie make some cookies while the Ben, Kent and Jordan played chess.

It was a beautiful day, so Alison and I headed outside to play in the leaves and "carve" our pumpkin.

We roasted the pumpkin seeds, made lots of yummy food, took some naps, played some games and got ready for the feast. Oh, and in the middle of all that, the neighbor's turkey fryer went up in flames in their back yard and we had help them out. Thankfully everyone was safe and there was no damage.

I'm so thankful for my princess. I'm thankful for her sweet spirit, endless hugs and kisses and passion for chocolate. We were getting ready for dinner and she asked if we could wear sparkly shirts and bracelets for the occasion. I love having a little girl to get dressed up with.

Alison asked to help decorate the table. She insisted the forks be placed backwards and was excited to have her very own special tea cup.

I'm thankful for my precious monkey. He's turned into quite the little ham and I'll take all the chubby smiles I can get. And I'm thankful for his first tooth that FINALLY came through yesterday.

Dinner was amazing and the food just keeps getting better each year. Our menu was: smoked turkey and ham, sweet potato casserole, Nonny's mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, cranberries, creamed onions and pumpkin pie. Pecan pie and zwiebach were also on the menu, but we ran out of time to make them.

Friday we decorated for Christmas and exchanged some gifts. Alison has this cute fascination with decorating. She even asked to forgo the annual pizza cook-off so she could continue decorating the tree. I finished all the decorating yesterday and she keeps politely asking if she can move things to where she thinks they would look better.

She was so excited to help daddy put the angel on top of the tree and is counting down the minutes until we start reading the advent book.

Alison made Nana a special gift and wrapped it herself. I'm so thankful for grandparents who get excited about pink pieces of paper covered in pompoms.

I'm thankful that kids think the smallest things are the best toys ever. Elizabeth and Kent gave Eliot stackable cups-he's played with them for days on end.
I'm thankful for our simple life; full of drool, giggles and love.

I'm a movie style!

Letter I

This is the assortment of activities we did this week for letter I...the incredibly cute little boy is just a bonus for the picture. We made an igloo, made and 'I' island, watercolored, worked on tracing letters, numbers and shapes, punched holes in a letter I (to work on fine motor skills) and made a mouse to go with the book If you give a mouse a cookie.

We read the book Inch by Inch and learned about measuring and inchworms.

We spent some time working on opposites and started an "I'm thankful for..." chart. The things she added to her chart this week were: ice skating, art and daddy.
We learned about the color indigo and worked on counting to 30 by putting cheerios in a jar.
Eliot's favorite part of school this week was singing the itsy bitsy spider.

Books: My "i" book, I Took a Walk, I Love My Abuela!, What will I do if I can't tie my shoe?, Inch by Inch, If you give a Moose a Muffin, If you give a mouse a cookie, Is a Camel a Mammal?.

Bible Story: Isaac: Genesis 18, 21, 24 & 25, Israelites: Exodus 1 & 2, 14-17

Movie: Barbie, Island Princess

7 Months

This is a classic moment in Eliot's life right now: pants covered in drool, a shirt covered in lunch, playing with Alison's dollhouse car. He doesn't have any teeth yet, but is eating all finger foods. He's sleeping a solid 8 to 11 hours straight and taking 3 naps a day. Crawling isn't looking too far away-we just need to find some motivation to get him moving! I absolutely love this stage! I love how he wraps his arms around my neck, grabs onto the back of my hair and give me a great big slobber kiss when I pick him up. I just can't get enough of his little giggle and his chubby smile.

Letter H

Ontop of our "normal" school stuff this week, we had a birthday party for Mr. Horse, sang him 'Happy Birthday' and drank hot cocoa. We read 'Caps for Sale' and talked about how cap and hat are the same thing. Then we saw how many different hats we could balance on Alison's head like the peddler in the book:In the book, monkeys mimic the peddler's actions, so we played 'monkey see, monkey do' and hopped around like hippos, patted our head and wiggled our hips.


Somehow this outfit equals cowgirl to Alison and she rode around on her horse for awhile. She practiced saying, "howdy partner" and "yee haw!".

wearing a heart shirt

Then we sang 'if you're happy and you know it shout hurray' and 'head, shoulders, knees and toes'. We started to learn how to read a clock and talked about the hour hand.

We finished our week by stamping some heart shapes on a big H poster and cut out hand prints to make a fall wreath.

Our books this week were: Harriet's Halloween Candy, Honey Helps, Happy Hiding Hippos, My "h" book and I want a hat like that.
Bible story: Hannah, 1 Samuel 1 and 2
Show: The cat and the hat
Game: hide and seek

Eli had his first play date yesterday. We went to the William's for the afternoon-Stacie and I worked on biblestudy, Alison and Samantha had a tea party, and Eliot and Isaac rolled around the living room.

I mentioned that I thought Eli would be feeding himself within a week...it was only a couple of days. He does remarkably well for being 6 months old and toothless. However, it's slightly more challenging because he does not want to be spoon fed at all. And if he sees someone eating, he wants to eat too. But don't even try to give him baby food, he wants what you are eating.

Halloween and some stats

Sunday's are long days for us and by the time trick-or-treating rolled around we were all exhausted. We went trick-or-treating downtown (foregoing several invitations to tour neighborhoods), got a few suckers for Alison and then went on a family date for dinner.  Eli had his 6 month check-up yesterday and is now 16 lbs 11 oz and 27 inches long. He's actually dropped a little on the growth chart and is now more in the 40th percentile.