Today is Raita's Birthday. I made him a lemon meringue pie and a margarita. He isn't too hard to please.

He has been talking about this T-shirt he wants to make. So, I went ahead and made one for him. He is all about the stacation or staycation which ever you prefer.....

I AM FULL

We had the usual and a few new items. One being these sweet potato stuffed oranges.

Very sweet but I will totally make them again as they were delish. We also had twice baked potatoes instead of mashed. And the ever popular broccoli corn casserole instead of the green bean.

My grandma Thela always makes this jello salad that she refers to as Delicious Salad. I had to make it so that the kids wouldn't miss out! It is very similar to this recipe only she uses 1 large box of raspberry jello and sprinkles sliced almonds on top.

We drank cranberry bellinis and the kids had cranberry cider.

Suki even had a plate of Turkey and dressing. She ate it in 2 and 2.




After all that, we all sat in the hot tub for a bit. It's in the upper 70s and so nice to sit outside. Imagine doing all this baking and cooking in an 80 degree house!

Off to make the whipped cream for the pumpkin pie! I hope everyone is as full as I am.

Random items of cuteness.

I sent Freya up to her room to put away some of her discarded clothes. Yes, she is in that stage where she must change her outfits 3 times a day. We went through this with Chloe too....Anyway, she didn't clean anything up because she evidently was too tired. So was the cat, as I'm sure he did most of the work in her room.


And in case you're wondering what my 7 year old would like for Christmas, here you go.

Can you say Turkey Trot?








The big kids had their turkey trot today. It was a grueling 2 miles but the weather was perfect for the race. Jonah placed 6th and Chloe was 10th! I am pretty proud of them both. Jonah has been waking up early twice a week for running club and I think it paid off. Chloe went in there cold turkey and still got in the top 10 for her age/gender! That's not bad considering there are at least 100 kids in each of their grades!

Last year I did the Austin Turkey trot which is a 5 miler with many hills. It was fun but I think this year I will have my own Turkey trot and just run the 5 miles around my house. The thought of getting up at 5am to stand in the frigid weather doesn't sound appealing to me this year.

Five miles means I can eat 500 extra calories Thursday. Not sure if it will do much good since the average T-day meal comes in around 4000 calories! Yep, that's not a typo this time, it really says 4000. Then add to that our anniversary meal the day before and Raita's birthday meal/cake the day after and I should really be running a marathon, not some measly 5 miler.

We have been working hard making Thanksgiving crafts. The owl is from Freya and says she is Thankful for her "heart, Mamma, Raita, Brother and Sister." I asked her about the heart comment and she said she is glad that she can care and love with her heart. How cute is that?

Jonah is not into the craftiness lately. I need to find something for an almost 10 year old boy to do.

So tell me, at 6:00am, would you be able to tell the difference between these two?

Yeah, me either.

That is why my kids all experienced soy sauce over waffles this morning. A true East meets West recipe....Lovely.

This time the Girl Scouts went to a bank! We got to see a $1000 bill, entered a real live vault and even went behind the scenes and watched the tellers use the air tubes. It was amazing how many questions the girls had about money and the bank. I learned quite a bit myself.

Chloe, the Early Years.

I was looking through a huge box of art by the kids. Here are some of my favorites by Chloe.

We did a little music and play at Bethany's house yesterday. Freya had fun and it's always nice to chat with other moms.

I think the boy's room is done. Went to IKEA and found a few little things to add to the wall. The top of the board now has mettle strips that I painted silver. I also found the light and thought it would look good in blue. When I got it home, I noticed that there is a spider on it and the end of the light is in the shape of a web! I didn't even notice it at the store. Score big time as it matches the Spidey theme perfectly.

In case you were wondering why the color scheme, it isn't patriotic but more Spiderific.

Anyway, I hope that this will help get more homework done!

My dad has been doing lots of stuff around the house for me. He has been working to put plywood up in my attic so I can store crap up there.

Then after Freya and I spent entirely too much time cleaning crap out of Jonah's room, he put this peg board up in there for me.

I think it will be great once we get all the little doo-dads up there, filled with crap. He also put these metal strips on the board so magnets can hold papers on it.

The word that Freya learned and used frequently while cleaning Jonah's room today was crap. The phrase of the day is "you betcha" courtesy of Grandpa Steve.

The idea for the pegboard bulletin board came from a few different places. Here is one:

Halloween was filled with a haunted pirate ship that gave adults BEER! A haunted house, an adult party and too much face paint.

We had a fun party for some friends at the house. There was lots of silly things to do, the main attraction was the haunted boat ride.

It got a little out of hand toward the end, but I guess that is what happens when you get too many kiddos in one place.


Thank you Tanya for capturing Chloe as the dead bride. She looks so great, and she acted the part to perfection!

And if you were at the party and wondering what happened after you left, catch the last two pictures. That is what a Karaoke show down looks like in our house. Kids dancing to extremely bad renditions of all songs disco.