The Day After...

There is a conspiracy to keep me from writing. As soon as I find a few minutes to sit down there is some new tragedy to attend to. Today it happened toward the end of lunch…I was done eating but my children (especially the male child) were still picking around on their plates using their best stall tactics. So I thought I would do some writing while they finished up. But as soon as I got my computer out, one of them spilled his milk. 

All over his chair. 

And the wall. 

After I got that cleaned up then there were requests for more food. Then one had to go to the bathroom – with assistance, of course. But finally all settled down so I could pound out a few words.

This morning was quiet… as far as there was very little talking and very little fighting (yay!), but it was filled with lots of new noises from the new toys and frequent asking if they could have more special treats (aka Chocolate). They have had so many sweets in the last few days that they now think it is normal and complain when I don’t give into their incessant pleas to keep the sugar high going. But even with the greatly reduced amount of sugar (or perhaps because of it), It was such a good day for them to be at home just exploring their new treasures. The last few days were a bit overwhelming for them as they spent so much time with family and opening the presents. Even though they enjoy it, it is a bit stressful. They are in their dress-up clothes, everyone is watching them, there are sooo many gifts, there are too many sweets, and they have to pose for too many pictures. Today they get to stay in their PJs and really take the time to play with everything.

And I get to linger over my cup of tea and catch up on Facebook and email.

But because of all their playing there are now toys EVERYWHERE. They will play with something for awhile, then walk into another room or just turn around and suddenly they see something else new. So the last hot item is discarded and traded for the new widget. This is not a recipe for a clean house. But since they are having so much fun I will not make them clean up until naptime. Then the challenge will be to find space for everything. I will have to purge their old toys soon.

I’m also loving listening to the Blue Plate Special today. I’m ready to pack away the Christmas music for this year. I’m also packing away a note of things to remember next year. Like how many cards to order, things that went well this year, and things to not do again.

Thanksgiving

Danny’s family came into town for Thanksgiving. He has three brothers who all live in different time zones, so we always try to cram as many activities into the time we have together as we can. 

It is always fun, but a bit tiring. Danny laughs at me when my “social quotient” gets filled up. That’s when I head to the bath with a book.

But Danny and my kids never seem to tire of family activities. Although there were a few meltdowns after long days filled with sugar. The kids got spoiled with lunch at McDonalds, playing at the park, building Lego’s with cousins, overload on electronic devices, etc. You know, all the fun things uncles and grandparents do for the kids.

The adult kids have a tradition of going to Old Chicago for drinks. I was so happy to be able to go this time…for several years in a row I have been pregnant or nursing or sleep deprived. It was a fun time to catch up with the brothers (and sister-in-law), and this year we got to meet a girlfriend. Then another night we went out to Jack Quinn’s. On Friday night we had a birthday party for our niece, then the boys went out again on Saturday night (that is the night I stayed in like a hermit). We also visited a few coffee shops and restaurants for lunches. We watched football, played games, and ate more food.

Whew. Like I said, lots of activity.

So, let's do it again next year!

early Thanksgiving

This weekend we had an early Thanksgiving get together with my family since we can’t all be together for Thanksgiving. It was nice to spend this time together. And we didn’t eat turkey – there will be enough of that this week. 

My family likes to play games…my husband does not, but he’s a good sport and will humor me for special occasions. Gage has not had much exposure to games yet, but he had great fun on Saturday. For him it is not about playing the games; it is about the cool pieces that go to the games. At one point, while we left him unattended, he got ALL the games out and ALL the pieces out. It was an epic mess in our living room. But with many hands working, we got it all put back together quickly. 

So that he could start dismembering everything again.

Gage with Uncle Ben

Our Italian menu: homemade spaghetti and ravioli (I make the pasta dough…Danny runs it through the machine. There is less fighting that way.) Antipasti was provided by my sister and her husband. It was so tasty and we snacked so much that we weren’t really hungry for lunch. But in true thanksgiving fashion we went ahead and filled our bellies to bursting. 

I even tried to get fancy with the name tags. 

Then we had spiced cider and pumpkin pie. That's when we all had to undo the top button on our pants. Good thing I wore legging with elastic.
Gage didn't remember having pumpkin pie before, so he was excited to try it.

success!

M&M was also a fan

 A good time was had by all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween

This year we did not do a lot for Halloween. In the past we have decorated the house inside and out, created great costumes, and hosted a HUGE party. For various reasons we decided not to do that this year. We did dress up (my favorite part of halloween) and go to someone else's party with a group of our friends. We decided very last minute to all go as the characters from Clue and I think we pulled it off pretty well.

Then it was time for my kids to dress up for Halloween. We decided to not take them trick-or-treating; Gage-a-rooni still gets pretty freaked out by a lot of things. So we opted to go to the Harvest Festival at our church. It was great. They had bouncy houses galore, both inside and out. My son could barely contain his excitement when we pulled into the parking lot and he saw everything set up. There were also some fun carnival games and a magic show. There were a bunch of things for older kids too, but we didn't check it out. It was also nice to be able to ration the amount of candy our kids got. There was a ton available, but at this age it is pretty easy to distract them with something else.

We were blessed with a beautiful sunset, while we were surrounded by shrieks of laughter from millions of kids all around. As it got dark, we moved inside (to another bouncy house) and kept going. Gage-a-rooni was throughly worn out when we finally peeled him away and got him in the car to go home.