A Nice Thanksgiving Break

This week has been a very nice one with Michael having a few days off of work for the Thanksgiving holiday.

On Monday morning we went over to the church for playgroup, and the boys enjoyed playing with balls and riding toys in the gym before we came home for Kolby to catch his bus. Over the weekend Eli also got a turn to bring home the Curious George stuffed animal from preschool, so he got to draw a picture and write all about his weekend with George. We also had to do minor surgery on George before he went back to preschool (his legs were coming unstitched at the seems), but Eli held George’s hand and George was brave while he got his stitches, and he made a full recovery.

On Monday night we got to go to the Ruder’s house for a farewell for our friends the Ferrins who got a job in Utah and decided to move rather suddenly. Kolby was glad that he got a chance to say goodbye to Lincoln. Tara and Josh, we wish you the best of luck with your move and your new job and home.

On Tuesday Kolby and Eli each had a little “feast” at kindergarten and at preschool, which was a lot of fun for them. We also got started on making the first of our Thanksgiving foods – a fruit salad (my great grandma, Mamaw’s recipe). And the boys were so helpful to me when I decided that I wanted to get the house cleaned up really well that evening. They helped with the toys and the dishes, and I got lots of the things put away that had accumulated on the counters and computer desk. It felt good to get the downstairs all the way cleaned. Michael had a long day at work, so he stopped by to help the Ferrins pack their moving truck on his way home from work but didn’t stay too long because they’d already gotten a lot of the packing done and they had lots of other helpers there.

Wednesday was our big day of cooking. I decided that I wanted to finish getting the entire house cleaned up all the way before starting in the kitchen, so after picking up a few toys downstairs, we went upstairs and the boys and I cleaned up the rooms and got everything put away so they could pick out a new set of toys. I also got the study cleaned up all the way, with only a small stack of papers that we still had to sort through and file away. (Since we started the week before to reorganize the study after putting shelves in the closet, there were a lot of papers that we hadn’t had time to put away and so I hadn’t let the boys go in there at all – so it was really nice to get it all picked up). Then we started in on the cooking. It ended up taking longer than I had planned to get all the cooking done, but I guess that everything takes longer with kids around, even though the boys were actually being quite good most of the time that I was working on getting the food done. I made 2 peppermint ice cream pies, the lemon jello with 7-up in it (a recipe of my great grandma, Grandma Moore’s, and my personal favorite holiday food), a layered green salad with peas and red onions that my mom always made, some honey butter for the rolls, and deviled eggs. I enjoyed listening to Christmas music while I made the food, but I was worn out from all the time on my feet in the kitchen by the time I was done. That night when Michael got home we went to a party of some people from church who always invite everyone over the night before Thanksgiving and everyone brings a pie to share. That was a fun idea, and we enjoyed going over for a short while.

On Thursday Michael got up in the morning and went to play “Turkey Ball.” Several of our friends had told him that someone gets injured every year when the guys play football on Thanksgiving morning, and this year was no exception – a young man that someone had invited to play broke his ankle and we heard that he had to have surgery on it that day – what a way to spend Thanksgiving. But Michael did have fun playing, and luckily he didn’t get hurt. We tried to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade on tv a little, but the only channel that we get that was showing the parade was showing more celebrity interviews than actual parade footage, so we turned it off before too long. We did get to see a Sesame Street float, though, so Isaac was very excited, exclaiming “My Elmo! My Elmo!” loudly when he saw it. I got a kick out of Kolby’s comment, though. He asked, “Mommy, is that the real Big Bird, or just someone dressed up as Big Bird?” After getting everyone ready in the morning, we sat down and read the three short Thanksgiving stories that Michael’s parents sent us a few years ago. The last one is about a family that each had 7 kernels of corn (supposedly because that’s how much the Pilgrims had left over after the harvest), and that they took turns going around and saying one thing they were thankful for for each kernel of corn they had. So, then we give each of the kids 7 pieces of popcorn and they get to say what they are thankful for – and you would be so impressed with what they said. You would think that kids that young would be saying that they were thankful for things like their toys, games, movies, school friends, etc. But they were so thoughtful – Isaac needed a little help with his things, but the three older boys came up with their own things to say, and they were things like church, baby Courtland, our house, Jesus, the food, Mommy, Daddy, the temple, Isaac, the earth, my family, etc. It was pretty cute to listen to.

A little after 1:00 we went over to the Phillips’ house. Courtland fell asleep in the car on the way over there, and we put him in his car seat up in a bedroom to have a little nap. He ended up taking a 5 hour nap – we kept checking on him, and he slept that whole time, he must have really needed to catch up on some rest. So he slept through his first Thanksgiving, but he’s been enjoying the leftovers since then. We had a wonderful dinner together, and I learned that I do actually like cranberry sauce (something that I never remember being part of our Thanksgiving menu growing up, and I always thought it didn’t look very good, especially out of a can, but Kristin made fresh cranberry sauce and it was quite good). All of the food was great. After eating the dads and boys went out back for a short game of football, and then the kids all played really well together, so the parents got a chance to enjoy a board game together before dessert. It was a very nice, relaxing day.

On Friday we enjoyed the day at home that Michael had off work. I asked the boys to clean up the toys that were downstairs, and I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that they not only put everything away downstairs, but then they went up and totally cleaned up both of the bedrooms and made all of the beds. What sweet kids! Then Michael and I decided to hang up some of the things in the garage so that we’d have a little more room to move around the cars out there. We made a ‘shelf’ with a board hung from the rafters with ropes at each corner, then we put a plastic kiddy pool on that shelf to hold all the kids’ summer toys – we got all the balls, scooters, sand toys, etc. up and out of the way. And we got the lawn mower up on the top shelf out there too, so that was out of the way. Then Michael hung up the kids’ bikes on hooks from the rafters. We also decided to use a big wooden box I’d found for firewood. So, that felt good when we got that job done. Then Kolby had his piano lesson – he’s still doing great and loving his lessons and practice time. I really like it when he plays Christmas songs, I’ll have to video some of them to share with everyone. After his lesson we had a short visit from Katherine Coolidge, a friend from church out in Milwaukee who was visiting family in Rochester. She brought some family members with her, and the boys had fun playing with her nephew’s son. Our kids hadn’t had naps yet and were acting pretty tired by the time they ended up leaving, but it was still a nice visit. On Friday night we ended up going to Home Depot because Michael’s dad said that there was a good sale on miter saws and offered to get us one for Christmas if we could go pick it up. We found the one on sale, and it was a good one, so that will be very nice to have for our house projects. We also stopped at JC Penny so I could pick up our family photos that we had taken last weekend, and they turned out pretty nice – now I just need to find someone who has a scanner that I can borrow to get them scanned. After the boys went to bed that night, I told Michael I wanted to hang up our big circular framed pedigree chart that he had gotten me and we had worked on when Kolby was still a baby. We hadn’t gotten around to hanging up pictures in the house yet. So, we opened up the frame for the pedigree chart so that I could update the little photo of the boys in the middle of the chart (it still had one with just Kolby and Eli on it, since we didn’t unpack it since we were in Milwaukee), and we added several names of ancestors that we had found since we last put names on the chart. Then Michael got interested and started to look on the new.familysearch.org website for his ancestors on his mom’s side of the family. Since then he has enjoyed searching for ancestors a few different times, finding some of the lines that linked into royalty and went back as far as the year 900 AD, I think he said. We’ve been taking a genealogy class for the last few weeks at church, but Michael has mostly always just gone with me and not done a lot of research on his family lines, so I’ve really enjoyed seeing him become interested and start to become familiar with the genealogy computer programs and websites.

And then yesterday we were also able to get some good work done around the house. Michael tackled the laundry and we got some jobs done around the house. At one point I came downstairs and Kolby had vacuumed every room without being asked – I think they’ve been talking about doing service in his class at church, and he’s sure doing a great job. Then we decided to work on hanging up more of the pictures. We got quite a few of them done – a wedding picture in the study, our picture of Jesus and a mirror in the living room, our family portrait in the family room, and a few other things downstairs. We also got things up in Kolby, Camden, and Courtland’s room. We let the boys help us hammer in the nails and we hung up the large framed Noah’s Ark puzzle that my mom gave us (that used to be in my little brothers’ room), and a couple of cute pictures I had found of zebras and giraffes, and a little wooden ark (also from my mom). Now we just have a few more things to hang in our bedroom, Eli and Isaac’s bedroom, and the bathrooms and we will be able to get rid of the stack of picture frames that has been sitting on our bedroom dresser for the last few months. It feels more like home now that we have those things hung up.

While his brothers were napping yesterday, I helped Kolby write his talk for his primary class at church today. He was asked to write a 3 minute talk about “My Family – I Can Serve Others,” and then to bear his testimony. I helped him write the talk, and he came up with a list of ideas for how kids could help serve their family members. Then Michael told him that sometimes you can include a scripture, a special quote, or a story when you give a talk. He got excited to share a story, but we looked in some of his ‘Friend’ magazines and had a hard time finding a story about serving your family that would be short enough to include in his talk. So he decided to make up a little story to tell about a boy who helped his parents clean the house. I helped him read his talk today in primary, and he did really well. Here is what he said:

“You can serve your family by doing things to help without being asked. There are lots of ways you can help serve your family. Here are some of my ideas:
You can help clean the house.
You can be nice to your brothers or sisters.
You can help your parents do the dishes.
You can help your brothers or sisters get ready for bed.
You can make a bottle for a baby.
You can read stories to your little brothers or sisters.

Here is a story about service: There was a boy who made the beds for everyone in his family one day. After he made the beds, he cleaned the dishes. He vacuumed the whole house without being asked. Then he showed his parents what he did. His parents said, ‘Thank you!’ The boy was happy. The end.

When I serve my family, I feel good. Service makes me love them more. The Holy Ghost makes me feel good when I help others. Jesus and Heavenly Father taught us to serve others. Jesus served all of us by dying for our sins. When I serve others it shows Jesus Christ that I love him.

I’d like to bear my testimony . . . ”

Last night we found a babysitter and went on a date – this is the second time since we moved here that we got a random letter in the mail from a local restaurant saying ‘Welcome to the neighborhood, come in and have 2 free entrées.” You can’t pass up a free dinner, so we had a nice little night out together. And when we came home the babysitter had gotten all of the boys down to bed (not a small feat). We waited until after 9pm (free cell phone calling time) and called the Kearls – it’s been way too many months since we’ve caught up with any of our Milwaukee friends – it was nice to talk with them, and then to play a board game, (yes, we played Settlers over the phone). That’s the one thing about moving so much – we sure miss the good friends that we’ve left behind with each move.

Then, last night Isaac woke up in the night with a high fever and spent most of the night in our bed. Michael stayed home with Isaac (and kept Courtland home too so it would be easier for me), and I took the three older boys to church. Luckily, Isaac has not had a temperature all day since I’ve been home, and he’s been acting very happy – so I’m crossing my fingers that he’s over whatever it was and that his brothers won’t get it. We’ve had a relaxing afternoon, and I’ve been trying to get all the photos on the computer from the camera – it’s been way too long since I’ve caught up on posting photos to the blog. Oh well. At least I’m finding the time to write about our week right now. Well, that’s about it – hopefully you all had a nice Thanksgiving break too.