I'm thankful for my crazy life!

Although not the biggest Thanksgiving fan, I do love the holidays because it means awesome sales at my favorite stores...oh, and family visiting! Jeremiah's sister, Amy, and her ladykiller son, Edmund, visited us for the Thanksgiving week. It was nice to have her around, she's full of energy and we got out of the house a lot more than we normally do. She even took me on a "date" to see New Moon - although I could have done without the 40-somethings behind me swooning over Jacob Black's every screen appearance.


Edmund and Aubrey got along like, well, siblings. Edmund loved to grab at Aubrey and Aubrey loved to grab at any toy Edmund happened to be playing with. She even threw her girly fits with him, screaming in his ear, and making him cry. But they had their moments of peaceful playing and it was fun to see them together.

One of the many activities that Amy suggested was a trip to the petting zoo at Thanksgiving Point. The boys and I got there early and decided to peruse the shops (well, I decided...they would have happily played in the itty bits of snow on the ground). While looking in the toy shop, they came up to me with big suckers in their mouth. Apparently they thought the open bins of bulk candy were just there for the taking. Luckily I had my wallet and some change and paid for their sins. I drooled over the store's clothing, pricey enough to match my utility bills, and then met up with Amy, Nana, Natalie, and Edmund for the zoo.

The cows were as cute as cows could be. They were mild mannered and nudged at the boys until the petted them. The $3 admission even came with a pony ride, but only for those 12 and under, meaning the boys were the only ones to take advantage of that. We saw horses, pigs, ducks, goats, sheep, and turkeys, which I pointed out to the boys would be our dinner the next evening. They didn't seem traumatized by that at all, luckily.

Yes, that is Roman wearing Jeremiah's scarf. He's deemed it his own scarf, and Jeremiah replaced his with a new one.

Hayden playing around in the zoo's gift shop.

So Wednesday night Jeremiah and I invited everyone over for couscous. Amy brought over Costco cupcakes (thus the enormous size) and because I had no room on the counters, I placed them on the floor for what I thought would be a short, uninterrupted period of time. As Jeremiah stated, "Why did you put cupcakes on the floor when we have a chocoholic for a daughter?!"

Roman and Hayden are obsessed with their costumes lately. Hayden was in his Harry Potter robe earlier, but Roman kept his elephant costume on. It's hard to take them seriously when they are dressed like this. They love playing the Wii when their cousin Taylor comes over.

Another new habit of Roman's is personalizing Lovey. Lovey "goes potty in the potty chair", jumps in the jumper for "quiet time", goes in time out, and "pushes" Roman, causing him to fall down. I noticed especially when Roman is disciplining Lovey just how much he is mocking me, such as "Listen carefully, Lovey..." and "Are we clear Mister?".

Thanksgiving Day was as expected. I woke up eager for the morning newspaper and all the Black Friday ads. I spent the morning making my Blue Ribbon Apple Pie (below) and thought it looked amazing. We then met everyone for "Planet 51" at the theaters. The boys loved it, Jeremaih thought it was awful, but I didn't have much of an opinion since Aubrey preferred crawling the halls to watching the big screen. Thanksgiving Dinner was totally worth the wait, of course. Steve always makes the best sweet potatoes with pineapple (although I will always have a spot in my heart for my mom's sweet potatoes!) and the turkey was delicious. I brought over a store-bought pecan pie, plus my apple pie and a pumpkin cheesecake. We played Mexican Train and the boys played ping pong.

All the cousins in attendence, plus Nana: Hayden, Natalie, Aubrey, Edmund, Nana, Taylor, and Hayden. This was the best shot I could get, and Aubrey had just woke up from a nap. Maybe next year we'll brave professional photographers!

Saturday morning the boys helped me decorate the tree, which meant that all the ornaments were on the lower half of the tree and a lot of them managed to be hooked on the same tree limb. Of course I gushed over their gorgeous tree only to rearrange the ornaments during quiet time. We've only had one incident of Aubrey grabbing ornaments and lights, fingers crossed.

The boys have a habit of eating dry cereal throughout the day, mostly at breakfast and for afternoon snack. They also prefer to eat "out of the bag" as opposed to me putting the cereal in a bowl. On Saturday, Aubrey got ahold of a bag. I was talking to Jeremiah when we heard what could only be a ton of cereal being poured onto the floor...

She was so proud of herself! She's growing up so fast, from getting into cereal and cupcakes to pulling herself up on furniture and talking way too much. She's quite patient with me when I do her hair (only because I've been doing it since she was born) and she loves her brothers to death.