Guess Who's Coming to Thanksgiving Dinner?

goofy girl

She slips "please bless the Lion King and the Holy Ghost" into every prayer.

• At breakfast the other day, she raised her glass of milk into a toast and said "to your hell, Mom" (I think she meant "to your health").
• She plays dolls and runs over to me intermittently to tell me "Oh, I'm a great Mom!"
• She told her nursery leader "Don't talk back to me!" when asked to sit down.
• After Halloween she told me "The ghost says 'ooo-ooo!' The witch says 'boo!' The pumpkin says 'Hi! I'm a pumpkin.'
• She kept identifying halloween ghosts as the "holy ghost."
• Chris checked on her in the middle of the night the other night. He wrapped a blanket around her and in her sleep she smiled and said "Oh! Merry Christmas, Daddy!"
• Hallie knows that it isn't polite (or acceptable) to tell us "shhh!" (in a bossy way). So she has been catching herself doing it lately she will say "shhh . . . shark!" Sometimes she will even elaborate like "Shhh . . . sharks swim in the water." It's hilarious.

I love this goofy girl!

living the dream

Here are some pictures of our day to day activities in November. This, my friends, is what I call living the dream. Spending each day in our home with my two love bugs and their father? Definite dream come true. What have we been up to lately? We've been watching cartoons, baking cookies and reading books. We did stage one of Christmas decorating (we've just done the family room so far). Our first big appliance died so we bought a new fridge/freezer. And we had family in town and went to the Army/Air Force football game. It's been a great month so far. Granted, this is the messiest time of my life. I always have crusty baby food on me and I rarely blow dry my hair or put on more make-up than LipSmackers chapstick. And on days like today, I much rather blog or make homemade Christmas gifts than do the laundry loads or sweeping I need to. But honestly, not a day goes by (or a even a couple hours) that I don't look at my kids or my husband or my home and go "How did I get so blessed?" And isn't that what Thanksgiving time is all about?

Him

I love him. I talk about him sometimes. But most of the time I don't even begin to mention all the things he does for me. Do you know how many times a month I get love notes? Yep, he is the thoughtful gesture kind of guy-- flowers just because, my favorite chocolates on a rough day, a new lip gloss or bubble bath to make me feel special. He's also the appreciative guy. The one who tells me how thankful he is for me, what an incredible mother he thinks I am, how beautiful I am (you know, all the things I don't feel worthy of). He's also the roll up your sleeves and get dirty kind of guy. After he comes home from teaching hundreds of hormonal teenagers each day, he changes diapers, rolls around with the kids, and asks if he can go pick up dinner to help out. He has all these facets. Most wives would just grab onto one and cherish that trait in her husband forever. But I get all of them rolled into one incredible guy.

Photo bits

10/30 Chris and Hal build a snowman
10/13 Hallie loves her Aurora costume from Grandma and Grandpa S.
10/14 Adorable Hal in her new outfit from Grandma S.
9/12 Claire bundled in the car
10/21 Hallie officially gets into my makeup for the first time. I even saw her do it but I just let her. It's a little girl right of passage.

Trick or Treat!

We had a jam-packed Halloween day.

Since the thought of cooking on Halloween morning was unbearable, I simmered some cider on the stove and Hallie and I drove to Sonic for some breakfast sandwiches for the family. Later, after we got dressed, we headed out for some mall shopping. I had great coupons at Borders and Bath and Body Works (free lotions and 40% off books)! Since Halloween only comes once a year, we had Hallie wear her cute witch dress all day.

In the late afternoon, we caught the tail end of the ward trunk-or-treat. We better go earlier next year if we want to socialize and get more candy (although it was worth it that the girls got good naps). For dinner, I made buffalo chicken sandwiches (one of Chris' all time favs). Grandma Judy came over to see the girls costumes and visited for awhile.

When our first trick-or-treaters arrived, Hallie and I set out to conquer the neighborhood. I actually thought we might leaisurely hit up five houses and saunter back home. No way! Hallie was sprinting from door to door. We met up with our neighbor Ashwin and his family and wound through the neighborhood. It actually worked out lovely because even though she didn't want to stick close to me, Hallie followed Ashwin and he was good about listening to what the parents wanted. Hallie was delirious. Even though we took her out for a bit last year, she couldn't remember it. Everytime she came down from a doorstep she would say "Look, Mom! Look!" She couldn't believe people where giving away free candy. You should have heard her enthusiatic "thank you." It was more like "THAAAAAAAANK you!"

We are so pleased to say our neighborhood was a hopping Halloween neighborhood! There were hundreds of kids. Chris and I loved it. We've always been in apartments where we get two kids tops. This was heaven! This was our first major holiday in our home (since we were gone for the Fourth). We loved it and it makes us even more excited that Thanksgiving and Christmas are around the corner!

Here's one final one of my cuties!

Jack-O-Lantern

We carved our pumpkin the night before Halloween. He is loosely based on Mickey Mouse. Daddy drew the face and both Mommy and Daddy took turns cutting out his features. Hallie was the official "face puller." She eagerly pulled out the eyes, nose and mouth after they were cut. We like to name our jack-o-lanterns every year. This year, we thought he looked like an Eddy.

My final Halloween food post for the year-- I promise!

If you are totally DONE with Halloween (which I finally am), I apologize. But, I have to document our last three days of spooky revelry. We made Halloween themed food right up through October 30. And then I was too burnt out to do anything fancy on the big day! Isn't that a riot? I did do a batch of spiced cider. Here are the final things we made: monster mouth tacos, witch finger cookies (such a blast), caramel apples, and snake stromboli. The snake stromboli was a little stumpy so I decided he was slug stromboli instead.

On the night we carved our pumpkin, we had ghost hot chocolate to warm us up. We also toasted pumpkin seeds. We did one batch of traditional salted and one batch of Ranch flavored. We liked them both.

I had so much fun with the festive food again this year. I promise I don't have all the time in the world to do this. I accomplish it because I am a "meal planner" anyway. I plan out my meals one week in advance so during October I just planned around my Halloween magazines. Most of the recipes were so quick, they ended up being easier than the usual meals I make during the week. Not that I spend two hours at dinner; but I usually take anywhere from 20- 45 minutes.