Thanksgiving

John worked of course, but the babies and I were invited to Tina's to celebrate Thanksgiving and it was delicious. I was grateful that I didn't have to cook all that food in my small kitchen, but I did make cranberry bread (that turned out a little too dry) and a lower fat pumpkin pie with graham cracker crust. Tina was cooking all morning and afternoon, and she made everything imaginable :) And it was so good, we took lots of leftovers!

   The kids ate a little but were too preoccupied with fighting over Noah's toys. I forgot to bring my camera, but I did get this picture of the leftovers she gave us--yum!:

 I kinda tend to forget/ ignore holiday celebrations when John works, especially since the babies are too young to really know. So it was nice to still feel like a normal American who stuffs themselves on holidays. John's work did cater t-day meals for them though, so don't feel too bad lol.  Since John is almost working every single day next month, we are celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve morning so he can see the kids get their presents before going to work on Christmas. I haven't bought presents for Christmas for years...we bought each other stuff our first year of marriage 7 yrs ago, and were always going through some transition/ordeal in Decembers, so we kinda stopped. This year ironically, we are buying a house, but it's actually going to be saving money so I got to buy some toys for the kids...it's SO FUN! and even funner to wrap them! wish I could show you, but the babies might see the blog lol. This is why you have kids!!! The excitement of getting them to understand the Santa Claus concept is so fun--and Lucas is just about at the right age to get it. But when you think about the stockings and tree etc, it is a pretty wierd idea to explain to a toddler. But it helps that I threaten that Santa isn't bring him toys if he's mean to Olivia or whines all day. It works sometimes. Pretty soon we'll be going to the mall to see Santa---Lucas cried the first year, then smiled the second, Olivia screamed the first year, so let's hope she doesn't this time. But I've noticed she is scared of men at first, so I predict it will be another screaming photo...oh well, still cute.
  Here we are putting up decor:

Lucas was drawing "Christmas trees" :)

This is our little fake tree. Next year we'll have a big enough living room to get a real one...thats real big!

The babies loved the lights, and I connected them to some color ones in their room to softly light their room as they go to sleep---it was a great idea because since it connected to these, the babies don't have access to the plug!

Dollar store is great for holidays!

I was looking for a Christmas calendar to countdown the days, but couldn't find one, so I got my dollar store crafts to make one! I also got the cutest wrapping paper there, with the classic xmas movie characters. Here's my make-shift Xmas countdown board. I hope it will help the babies understand when Christmas is. We picked out these stockings at the dollar store too. :)

I think I am finally becoming a "woman"...I started accruing Xmas decor. I mean like little Christmas picture frames, ornaments and knick knacks. It's pretty fun. I hope to do up the house big next Xmas. I love this ornament cousin Ken & Linda bought us last year--personalized is so much better!

Here's the babies dancing to Christmas music--we're really getting into the spirit this year: