Happy Thanksgiving

Welcome back to the Bough Family's November celebrations. Honestly, the biggest thing we have accomplished this month has been sitting in front of the T.V. with lots of cuddles since EVERYONE has been sick. The month started with beautiful weather that Mommy took advantage of by putting up all of the Christmas lights in the front of the house. There were several days in the 50's and 60's and I really didn't care what the neighbors thought. All I knew was that my lights were done and it wasn't 19 degrees like it was the day after Thanksgiving. I was unfortunately unable to hang the icicle lights since Tom has his own method. The picture to the above is of he and the kids around 5pm early in the month. It gets pretty dark and chilly at night, which is why we take advantage of warm days while we can. Shortly after this time, Tom became very sick and spent 24 hours asleep in bed after having severe flu symptoms. Stephen was next to have amoxcillian prescribed for his infections, followed by Rhea's double ear infection and pink eye. Just as I thought to myself, "How did I escape illness after getting coughed on for two weeks", I was very sick. I started my round of amoxicillan two days before Thanksgiving and it has been hard to tell if I am any better. It is nothing that some cough medicine with codeine can't cure. I don't think it does much for my cough, but I sure sleep through the night. The best thing was at least everyone else was healthy and just recovering from fatigue and watching too much T.V.
My goal every year is to have the majority of the decorations done before Thanksgiving so we can enjoy the day putting up our four trees. I think I did more pre-decorating this year since school work wasn't going well while everyone was sick. The kids sorted through one box of goodies every day and were always excited to see what they would find. Actually, Rhea was restricted to non-breakable boxes and was otherwise put to bed for a nap. Meanwhile, Stephen helped me decorate the stairs, our bedroom, and organize his Christmas village. The biggest challenge was keeping him quiet so Rhea didn't catch on and think we were leaving her out. Well, I guess we were, but nothing was broken as a result. Stephen's attention span this year was much longer and it was great to have him helping instead of "helping". His job on the stair project was to hang all of the miniature ornaments that he is displaying in the picture. Next, was his favorite Christmas Village. His God-family gave him a set last year which he added to over the summer. He knew that when Daddy went out of town, he would get to pick out a Christmas house at the Goodwill if he did a good job. Luckily, there was a nice selection every time we went. I am not sure what my alternative was going to be, but it worked out with the exception of needing to put it on a bigger table next year. Thanksgiving Eve was an exciting time. We didn't do any "seat work" while everyone was sick, but there was plenty of book reading. I hoarded about a dozen Thanksgiving books from the library and we read our way through the month. I had several cut, paste and fold type activities that were successfully done, even if we did throw it all in on the Eve of the big day. Here you see Rhea with her hat while being bribed with a sucker to sit in the chair for a picture. I didn't get a chance to tie it under her chin since we were lucky enough for the sucker bribe to work (hence the finger holding the hat on from the top). She usually likes hats, but seemed to enjoy resisting this one. I would say that she rebelled on purpose since I wanted a picture, but she is JUST a baby.... right? Meanwhile, Stephen really enjoyed his hat as much as he enjoyed making it. He liked it so much he worn it on our family acorn hunt. Or in Pooh's world, "haycorn". I am not sure why Pooh can't say this correctly making it annoying to explain "acorn" to the kids. Even my spell check said it was wrong. Anyway, I hid paper ACORNS and squirrels all over the house and you would have thought that is was Easter in November. Stephen particularly thought it was neat that he found them in his bed. He enjoyed pretending that the squirrels hid their acorns in the house, but was quick to look up at me and asked for me to hide them again. Oh well, he was equally excited the second, third and fourth time around.

Thanksgiving day was eagerly awaited. Everyone could not wait for the making of the cinnamon rolls. Here is a picture of our bed-head children gazing into the bread maker. Stephen lost interest in the rolling of the dough due to watching the Parade, so Rhea was able to join Daddy in the kitchen to finish Meem's (Great-Great Grandma) famous rolls. It would have been really difficult to pass up this photo op. After the rolls were done and nap time arrived, it was time for Tom's annual Thanksgiving cooking to begin. Let's just say that Thanksgiving is Mommy's reward for making it through NIU Marching season. He makes everything from scratch (except the gravy, but who makes their own gravy anymore).

After nap time, Tom's dinner was complete and soon devoured. We had already begun decorating the trees, but with so many trees, it took all day. The kids really enjoyed putting their ornaments on their prospective trees, but their interest only lasted so long. My personality would normally get it all done by noon, but I resisted for the sake of my children. These pictures were taken as the last ornaments were carefully placed. Stephen was really good about getting the hooks on the branches, but could still only reach so high. I would then move them higher when he wasn't looking to keep the bottom branches from getting the sags. Rhea, on the other hand, could not quite get the "hook" thing figured out, but had a great sense of accomplishment by carefully placing each ornament on the branches. The house has never looked so cozy and it was fun to be able to do everything as a family this year. I hope that everyone had as much fun as we did on Thanksgiving Day 2007!