Kind of our First Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for the many things the Lord has given me;

my food, my clothes, my ears that hear, and my eyes that see.

I'm blessed to have a warm, safe home and to live where I am free,

But most of all I'm thankful for my wonderful family.

This Thanksgiving was  "kind of our first Thanksgiving" in that it was the first time we've had Thanksgiving dinner at our house. It was also the first Thanksgiving I've had with my brothers Michael and John since we've graduated from High School. John and his family drove down from Idaho to spend Thanksgiving weekend with us. Michael and his family came from Orem for Thanksgiving Day.

 I was excited to have Thanksgiving here. I started testing recipes about a month ago and after 4 practice runs with turkey recipes, I concluded that practice doesn't make perfect. It only proves that no matter what you do something is bound to go wrong, so don't worry about it. Even so, the practice was helpful and the turkey turned out great. 5th time's a charm I guess. In the last 30 minutes before dinner our kitchen somewhat resembled "Iron Chef America" as Luke and my two brothers took orders from me while we scrambled to finish everything up. It was fun cooking with Luke. He hefted the turkey for me and kept an eye on the creamed corn. He persuaded me to spare the green beans when, convinced that the onions were too caramelized, I was going to throw them away and start over. Michael was the assistant gravy chef and John was the table runner. Everyone chipped in in lots of ways, and if it weren't for all of the help I got from all of my gracious family dinner never would've happened. 

While dinner preparations were under way, the kids colored their own Thanksgiving placemats for the table and everyone wrote what they were thankful for on a paper leaf and put it on our family tree. After dinner we had an impromptu Wii party, followed by dessert. 

Growing up, my mom had a tradition of making everyone their own pie, flavor of their choice. I was not about to do that, but rather chose one dessert in honor of each our Smart Family groups.  We had my mom's favorite dessert (brownie pudding) to represent the family gathered together in Maryland, my sister-in-law's favorite dessert (berry cobbler) to represent the family in New Hampshire, and a pie that my brother brought for the Utah Smart Family celebration. After dessert we welcomed in the Christmas season by turning on our Christmas lights. 

One of my favorite things about this year's Thanksgiving was actually the day before Thanksgiving. I had a rose-colored idea that I wanted all of my girls to be involved in the dinner preparations. I selected some menu items that were simple enough for them to legitimately participate in the making of and I invited them all into the kitchen to pursue my goal of achieving family togetherness through culinary cooperation. Even with that goal in mind, there came a point when all three of them were sitting on the counter arguing, one with soapy water up to her elbows and the other with her finger in the brown sugar, and I almost said, "You know what, go watch TV and let me take care of this." 

Earlier I spoke with my mother about traditional Thanksgiving dinners. She offered that working together to make the dinner is the part of Thanksgiving traditions that bond a family. We discussed how the trick is to do enough work to create the opportunity for group cooperation and individual contribution while not overworking the people involved. With that in mind, I bit my tongue and regrouped and you know what? I had fun. 

Each girl had one dish that they "made" and they were proud to see it on the table and to show it off to our guests. They were genuinely helpful, especially where washing dishes was concerned. In fact, Beth was so dedicated to washing dishes she spent the better part of an hour at the kitchen sink and used most of a bottle of detergent. At one point I handed a dirty spoon to Madeleine and asked her to please put it in the dishwasher. She surprised me by handing it to Beth, assuming I was referring to Beth as The Dishwasher.  The whole morning was well worth a little chaos. 

There are more years to come where we'll work together in the kitchen, making dinner while creating memories.  Someday, I may even sit back and let them do all work! For this year, I am thankful for soapy dishes, chocolate splatters, sticky fingers, and licking beaters.  True, it took longer and made a bigger mess than if I would've done it by myself. It is also true that we each have something to give and something to gain by doing things together. Whether they will remember it or not, my girls were a part of Thanksgiving this year and that matters. I think they learned something about cooking and hopefully that will prove useful in their futures. More so I hope they learned something about how it feels to be part of a family and what it means to work together and serve each other. I did, and that made this "kind of our first Thanksgiving" the best kind.  

(see slide show for pictures)

My Tips For Shopping At Costco

The holiday season is upon us and that means lots of shopping. I've done most of my Christmas shopping already and in so doing have frequented Costco more than usual. In the process, I learned the following lessons the hard way:

There is no such thing as going to Costco "for just a few things." No matter how carefully you plan your list, inevitably you will find a few more things that you need and few things that you don't. 

If you think limiting your shopping time by going to Costco right before you have to pick your kids up from school will likewise limit your spending, you are wrong - and you will be late picking up your kids.

When loading your purchases into the back of your car, it is helpful if you don't have a bucket of old raspberry canes and a plastic bin full of Halloween costumes in there already.

Be careful about shopping there when you are hungry. Buying something that looks good at the moment means you will be eating it for the next two weeks. 

FYI some of my favorite things to get at Costco are paper products in bulk, discounted books, the Ottavio's tomato basil soup, the Del Monte bottled peaches, and the Posada Chimichangas. What are yours?

To all you Costco shoppers out there, happy shopping!

I Feel Kind of Old When. . .

At first glance the 20-something mother pushing her baby in a stroller strikes me as a teenager on a babysitting job

There are only two dinner glasses left out of the set we got as a wedding present

My daughter asks, "What's a VCR?"

My other daughter explains to her sister, "A long time ago there used to be phones with cord-things on them."

Oh well. I've been wanting to buy some new dinner glasses anyway, and who needs to be tethered to a phone by it's cord? As far as my kids go,  someday their kids will be saying things like, "a long time ago there used to be this thing called "email" and you actually had to TYPE the words . . ."

Uncles, continued

It turned out that Uncle Jake DID end up going to the Thanksgiving Feast with Beth. I had plans to be out of town with Luke and Beth could not be consoled that I was going to miss her Thanksgiving celebration. She cried and cried until finally I asked, "Would you feel better if you knew that Uncle Jake is going to try and make it to your Thanksgiving Feast?" The water works stopped and the little sun in her world was shining again. Thankfully, Jake was able to make it and Princess Pink Feather had a wonderful time.  Having family around to cover for you when you spread yourself too thin - that's something to be thankful for. 

Thanks Jake!

Uncles

Lately comments about Uncles keep popping up in the bits of conversation around here. For example;

Beth: When will we ever see Uncle Paul again? Maybe we can go on vacation somewhere and he can be there. (I think she is remembering last Thanksgiving when we met him in California)

Madeleine: There are phones where you can see the people the you are talking to. Deaf people use them so they can sign to each other over the phone. Uncle John has one because he is deaf.

Beth: Uncle John is deaf??

Madeleine: Not mom's brother Uncle John. Grandma's brother Uncle John. Mom's brother John isn't deaf, but Uncle Michael is color blind.

Beth: Color blind?

Madeleine: He doesn't see color right. When he looks at colors they look different than how you and I see them. Like when your eyes see blue, his eyes see purple.

Mary: My blue eyes can see Spencer.

Beth: Oh darn it! I forgot to ask Uncle Seth about the problem I'm having with my tooth. 

Madeleine: Don't worry Beth. If mom can't come to your Thanksgiving Feast maybe Uncle Jake can come, like he came to Science with me last year.

 They still brag about how Uncle Josh let them to drive a bulldozer, and how they can play soccer because their Uncle Chad taught them. They try to keep tabs on their Uncle Eric's dating life and they always hope he will be at Grandma's house when we go there. To all you Uncles out there, I hope you know whether you are down the street or across the country, you are in the hearts and thoughts of three little girls. What lucky girls to have so many great men in their lives!

Balloon Volley Ball

Madeleine needed a balloon to demonstrate a science experiment for us during family night so I bought a package. By the next day, the whole package had been blown up and the girls have been engaged in balloon volleyball matches ever since.  

Here is how Mary plays:

Here is how Beth plays:

Elections and Veterans

One day last month Madeleine surprised me with the following conversation:

Madeleine: "Religion is pretty much the biggest thing in the third grade right now. That, and the elections. Are you going to vote for Obama or McCain? 

Mom; "I'm not sure yet."

Madeleine: "I'm leaning towards McCain. I think he's nice, and it seems like all Obama cares about is America.

Beth, with a sideways glance:"Well, doesn't he LIVE in America? And shouldn't you care about where you live? It's not like he's going to be President here and go live in some other country!"

Madeleine: "Yes, but you still have to want to help other people. You can't just care about yourself all the time."

And so a political debate ensued between our little Republican and our little Democrat. It cracked me up. Mary chimed in, asking, "What's Oba?" "Obama" Madeleine corrected, "Like a bomb, that explodes, O-bomb-a." That struck me as an hilarious pronunciation guide for his name. Mary liked the sound of it and started running around singing '"obAAAAAAma! obAAAAAma!" 

Politics is rarely a prevalent topic of conversation in our house so I was surprised how much the kids thought about the elections and getting a new President.  Madeleine's class had been reading Time For Kids, the school news version of Time magazine, and she was pretty concerned about foreign policy. On Nov. 4th, different grades at school voted within their own classes and graphed the results. Madeleine came home wearing a personally made "I Voted" sticker on her jumper and she wanted to stay up on the night of elections to see who won. We sent her to bed with the promise that we would wake her up as soon as we knew. 

The next morning I asked her if she was disappointed that McCain lost. "Not really," she said. "I'm glad that he was so nice about losing. He was like, 'well, that's ok.' I think Obama will do a pretty good job - but I hope he doesn't just care about America and people. I wish he cared more about animals and forests too. . . " Besides that, the girl's only reaction to the election results was wanting to find out what kind of puppy is going to move into the White House. 

Freedom is a pretty amazing thing. Hundreds of thousands fight to obtain and preserve it while those who inherit it hardly realize they have it. I'm sure my children don't know how fortunate they are to live where they can receive an education, where they are free to voice their political opinions, and where their parents and someday they can take part in an election.  I'm not sure I fully appreciate our privileges myself, but I am thankful for them.  I'm thankful for people like my grandfathers and my father who served in the military and helped to provide those privileges for me and my children. I'm thankful to know that come what may with health care, taxes, and the war on terror we are still part of a great nation with the potential to become greater. I'm proud that we have a who leader was chosen by the people through the democratic process. I hope that my children will learn to appreciate the privileges they have. I hope they'll feel indebted to those who serve our country. I hope they will grow up to be people who care about America. 

 

Halloween Week

Last Friday Grandma Liz threw a big Halloween Bash. Last Saturday we went Trunk-or-Treating and got a big stash. Then at the Spook-tacular there were lots of games to play. At school we wore PJ's or crazy socks for a day. Last night we went Trick-or- Treating and had lots of fun. Now our candy's nearly gone and Halloween is done! 

        Happy Halloween from Madeleine the Bride, Beth the Goldfish, and Mary the Unicorn (costumes designed and made by Luke's amazing mother, Grandma Liz)

6 Ways to Celebrate Your 6th Birthday

1. The week before your birthday, snuggle next to your Grandma while she reads you an original story about her childhood that she brought to you all the way from Maryland. Then go have dinner with your cousins and open the hand-made gifts they drew for you. 

2. Two days before your birthday, take treats to your class, let them all sing to you, and have "free choice" of anything to play with in the classroom while the whole class makes you birthday cards.

3. The night before your birthday, go on a date with your Grandpa and his wife, fulfilling your life long dream of going to Build-A-Bear. Take your bear with you everywhere all week.

4. The day of your birthday, wake up to a "breakfast party" with your family. Eat your favorite breakfast foods, open your presents, and blow out the candle on your cinnamon roll. Take your mom to school with you for "Mother's Visiting Day," and sit on her lap during story time. After school, bring home a friend. Have a tea party lunch and decorate cupcakes with her, her little sister, and your little sister.

5. The night of your birthday, go to dinner with your Grandma and open presents at her house. Try on the Halloween costume that she designed and made for you while you're there.

6. The Saturday following your birthday, have a party with all your friends at The Little Gym. Spend the afternoon pasting pictures of your friends into your new scrapbook.  

 

And One To Grow On; Plan a Daddy-Daughter Date to go spend the birthday money you got in the mail from your Great-Grandmother. 

 Thank you, everyone who wished Beth a happy birthday. Beth is a lucky girl to have so many people to love her and make her birthday special. We are a lucky family to have such a special little girl. Happy Birthday Beth!