Happy Thanksgiving!

Preparations

part of the flock of hand turkey place cards

We started one last Thanksgiving project at the beginning of the week--hand turkey place cards. We did the tracing and coloring onto notecards, I started cutting, and then in all the excitement of family and food we completely forgot to finish and use them! Oh, well, maybe next year.

This week instead of involving the entourage in housecleaning, our next door neighbor, Miss N, offered to let them come over to play with her daughter, LA, on Tuesday morning, so I could actually get everything done before our extended family arrived. Our girls love LA, and they started begging me to take them next door from the moment they got up that morning! They had a grand time playing with LA, sharing snacks and all her toys, and soaking up some Spanish. (Miss N is from Mexico, so she and LA are biligual. Monkey, Bug, and I had a long conversation the other day about different languages, talking about how they ask for something--"water, please!" how LA asks--"agua, por favor!" and how Goose asks "Waaaaah!") AND our house was completely clean, top to bottom, all at the same time! I took a few moments to just admire it before sending Daddy to pick up the entourage.

The gang's all here!

This year we had Grandma, Granddad, Uncle N, Aunt A, and A's friend from college here for the holiday. Monkey and Bug love having the family here: More people to build with blocks! More people to play games! More people to read books! In fact, they were so busy playing with everybody that they didn't end up getting involved in all the cooking on Thursday (usually they love helping me cook). Goose still has some anxiety about all these "strange people" in her house, but she had mostly warmed up by the end of the visit. In addition to the full-scale feast, this side of the family's Thanksgiving traditions involves going for an after-meal walk around the neighborhood, then coming home to pies, apple cider, and board games. While they were here we also went for a more picturesque walk along the canal. We got to see kayakers (including a father and son team who were just getting in the water and let us get a close look at the kayaks), turtles, a comorant, and lots of dogs.

Aunt A and Uncle N are both musicians and brought their instruments with them to practic (saxophone and trumpet respectively). After hearing A and N practice for a little while, Monkey and Bug were really excited that they got to push the buttons while A and N played. Discussion followed about how the trumpet had 3 buttons and the saxophone had LOTS of buttons. The girls also spent time figuring out the saxophones system (some buttons close multiple holes).

The family went home on Sunday while we headed to church, and life returned to normal. We're looking forward to seeing them (and the rest of the clan!) at Christmas.