Happy Thanksgiving!

This year's Thanksgiving was a potluck affair at Aunt Vicky's house.  The turkey was delicious thanks to Uncle Matt, Vicky made a yummy appetizer, Grandma contributed delicious homegrown mashed potatoes, Glenn made a giant salad and I remembered the sugar in the pumpkin pie.  We were stuffed.  The theme of the day was BABY COUSIN as we all angled for as much Baby Cousin time as we could. 

This big cousin is very interested in baby cousin.  He loves to hold her, even though I'm still holding on to her wobbly head.  Will always reaches for her hand and sits there perfectly still as long as she holds it.  It's very sweet. 

When he's not holding his baby cousin, Will's holding on to my Ipad.  Uncle Matt had just finished bandaging Will's knee because it's not a trip to the aunt and uncle's house without some sort of bloodshed.  Or maybe it's not a day in the life of a 6-yr old without something needing a bandaid?  This time, he found the biggest rock in the front yard and whacked his knee on it.  After we tried a bandaid that didn't do much to hold in the blood (yuck), Uncle Matt wrapped up the knee in a concoction that would've made a field surgeon proud and certainly brightened the spirits of the warrior on the sofa.  He's hoping the bandage will last until Monday when he can show it off to school. 

If 4-yr olds were allowed to babysit solo, Reina would be all over that.  She loooooooves to help with baby cousin.  She even assisted me on a couple of diaper changes. 

The highlight of my day was a giant smile from Baby Genius.  I had heard of the smiles but hadn't seem them in person yet.  You can tell how much I love that little smile by my willingness to post a picture of my wrinkled face and nose.  Look at that cute little grin!! 

Lots of love in this picture. 

After Thanksgiving was over, Will left with the grandparents and the rest of us came home.  Reina had a slight cough during the afternoon which turned into croup overnight.  We avoided a trip to the ER but took her to the doctor this morning where she got her own inhaler and she's already feeling better.  She and I stayed home today and cleaned up (me) and watched cartoons (her) and turned every doll and stuffed animal into a baby.  The best part about today?  It's only Friday and we still have a nice weekend stretched out ahead of us.  What a great way to kick off the holidays. 

Sportsmens' banquets and dinner dates

Last weekend we attended a fundraiser for a local sportsman's conservation group. It was a family-friendly event so we all made an evening out of it.  There were activities for the kids and silent auctions and raffles for the grown-ups. I continued my streak of winning things that I don't need but that other people like (a welder, a gun and now a fly rod).  We had a nice time even though at one point, we had to have a five minute conversation about whether our meal was a piece of fish or chicken (it was chicken).

It's Hunting Girl!  She looks concerned because she was mad that she didn't have enough prizes yet but it was early.  This girl has grown about 3 inches in the last few months and all of her dresses are now micro-minis.  Time to go shopping! 

This is the face I get when I ask Will to smile for the camera these days.  Sigh.  First-graders. 

Last night, Will and I had dinner at a local fast-food restaurant (actually my favorite fast-food restaurant) because it was Spirit Night for his school and each class has a competition to see who can collect the most receipts.  It was a tough sacrifice but I had to do it.  It's for the kids!  Reina was spending the night with the grandparents and Glenn was eating a healthy meal so it was just the two of us.  Afterwards we walked around for a few minutes and talked about Christmas.  I still can't believe it's time for that.  Bring on December!  

My toothless dinner date

 

Will's Thanksgiving Speech

Will had to give a speech in class today about his family's Thanksgiving traditions.  We've been practicing it for a few weeks and yesterday we made a poster collage (pics of that later.)  For all of posterity, here's the speech (cute misspellings included):

Will's Speech

We eat pie- but I do not like pie.  Mom forgot to put sugar in the pumpkin pie year.  Yuc.

We eat turkey. My Uncle Matt cooks the turkey.  Yum. My dad likes to hunt turkeys.

We spend the day with our aunts, uncles, cousins, Grandma and Pop-Pop.

We watch a movie after we eat.  I like to watch Star Wars.

My favorite food to eat is the turkey.  This year I want to have ice cream.

My mom likes to watch football on Thanksgiving afternoon.

I hope you have a happe Thanksgiving.

A list of things the dogs have eaten in the last month*

Several potatoes, raw.  Mostly chewed into tiny pieces and not necessarily digested.
1 loaf of bread, minus the plastic bag
2 bananas carefully peeled.  (I would've actually paid to see Trigger peel a banana.  I believe It was Trigger because Tootsie was much, MUCH too humble about the whole thing)
1 of Reina's art projects from school but shhhhhhh, don't tell her. She hasn't noticed.
2 tomatoes
1 sizeable bag of leftover Halloween candy, also Reina's so shhhhhhhh......

*besides dog food and dog biscuits and food mysteriously falling from the table.

Next time, our plans for making sure the dogs are never, ever left alone in the house again.

Toothless

Will came home from his after school program yesterday minus that one dangly front tooth.    Apparently it came out with little drama and a little help from the after school snack.  He couldn't look more like a first-grader if he tried.  According to Glenn, Will also plotted on the way home about the best way to gross me out.  He finally decided that Glenn would tell me that Will won a prize yesterday, I'd close my eyes and Will would drop the tooth in my hand.  He pulled it off without a hitch and while I wasn't as freaked out as he wanted me to be, I'm sure glad that tooth is out. 

Go Broncos!

Glenn and I braved the chilly temperatures and the late start (6:30 p.m.!) and headed to Denver yesterday for the Broncos vs. KC game.  It was a great game!  It was probably the best game I've been too since we've had season tickets - and not just because the final score was favorable to our favorite team.  The crowd was loud, the game was exciting and none of our extremities froze.  And we made it on to the jumbotron! 

Not our actual jumbotron picture but it probably looked similar.  Although the camera was focused on a guy a few rows ahead of us so we looked more like the guy in binoculars behind us in this picture.  This is before the game started because I was still warm enough to not have zipped up my giant parka. 

Our view from the almost-top of the stadium.  The new giant tv screen helps bring you closer to the action but it doesn't do much to block the wind.  It was downright chilly by the second half. 

Who needs a tv when you have a pair of hunting binoculars.  Glenn was as vocal and animated as I've ever seen him at a football game.  Look at that intensity!  That focus!  He even let out a energetic but moderately toned "Whooooooo!" at the appropriate time.  AND he wore an orange hat. 

We stayed until the final buzzer sounded which meant we rolled back into town around 12:30 this morning.  A late night but a great game. 

Basketball boy

Since I wasn't fast enough to get any basketball pictures of Will last week, I planned ahead this week and took pictures of Will during Reina's game.  Here's my first shot. 

Hey Will, show me your basketball face! 

And then after some pleading, cajoling and finally "Just turn around already!" I got this pose.  It's his crazy basketball face! 

For the record, those two top teeth are hanging in his mouth by a thread.  An ever so tiny thread.  The tooth on the right is so loose that's actually sitting in there at an angle and it gives me the heebie-jeebies every time I look at it.  We offered Will all sorts of incentives* to yank that tooth out this afternoon but he wouldn't budge.  *Cash, a new game on the Ipad, more cash.

Will stayed home from school again yesterday but his fever was down and his stomach was feeling better.  He was pretty tired and still needs a little bit of rest.  This morning, he played basketball and scored one basket.  His coach said he did a great job coming off of the injured reserve.  I could tell he had a little less energy than the week before but he sure tried hard.  Knock on wood, we are done with stomach flu for 2013.