Thanksgiving 2013

Another Thanksgiving Day has come and gone.

In past years we have celebrated at 52, by ourselves at home, and at church with friends and family. This time we offered to cook, and Eric's parents offered to let us converge at their house along with FIL's parents and B&J and their crew. It ended up that we all shared the cooking duties. Eric and I did the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, a broccoli/cauliflower salad, and cranberry mousse.

We did almost all of the cooking and prep work yesterday, which meant that this morning we could be lazy and watch the Macy's parade and the dog show before making our way to 52 where we finished the cooking and warming.

We cooked the turkey all night and took it out of the oven in the early hours of the morning to rest before we pulled it all apart. When the Boogie got up she let us know what she thought about that.
"Honey, while we were sleeping, that turkey," gesturing at it with a look of disgust, "made a stinky smell ALL OVER the house."
"Stinky?" I said, surprised, "I think it smells good! You don't think it smells good?"
"No!" she replied emphatically. "It smells awful."
Well.

We had so much yummy food. We ate and ate and chatted and looked at sale ads and ate some dessert and played games. It was a fun day!

We took Mama Dog with us. She happily wandered everywhere searching for any stray crumbs. She pulled used plates out of the the trash can (before we remembered to put it out of reach) and licked them clean. She had her belly rubbed and her back massaged. She snuggled with people on the couch. She picked up wadded up paper during our game of Pictionary and carried it around in her mouth. When we got home she conked out in the middle of the living room floor, exhausted.

We have so much to be thankful for: our family (including the joyfully anticipated addition in just a couple of months!) our extended family, our friends and our church, our home, Eric's job ... the list goes on and on. Ultimately, though, we are thankful to our great, mighty, powerful, loving God.

O give thanks unto the LORD; 

for he is good: 

for his mercy endureth forever.

Psalm 136:1

 

Eleven Twelve Thirteen

I can't let a cool date like this pass by without posting something.

We opened the curtains to snow flurries this morning. The girls were ecstatic. "Honey, now can we watch Christmas movies?" Peabody asked, "'cause it's snowing." I didn't know she even cared about watching Christmas movies. I didn't know she even knew there is such a thing as Christmas movies. And the answer is emphatically NO. No Christmas movies, music, or decorations before Thanksgiving. However, snow is a good reason to do school in pajamas.

A couple of cousins stayed with us over the weekend. Even though we see cousins on a regular basis at church, it's nice for the girls to have some one-on-one time with them. Sometimes weeks and weeks will go by before I realize that it's been a really long time since we had someone over to play!

EK was first. She adores Mama Dog and will play and play and play with her. When we asked her what she would like for dinner she said, "bacon!" She is her father's daughter.

HE stayed over next. She told Peabody all about seeing Buzz Lightyear in costume at Disneyworld. Peabody was dumbfounded. A real Buzz Lightyear as big as a person? Whom you can high-five? And talk to? And hug? Now she asks us periodically throughout the day if we can please go see "da big Buzz Lightyear, wif princesses? Please please please please pleeeeeeeease?"

Mama Dog finally had a much-needed bath and is now permitted on carpeted areas once again. When the weather gets cold and she has to stay inside most of the time, I feel sorry for her being stuck in the kitchen. Plus I figure she stays cleaner this time of year. Cleaner dog = cleaner carpet. Also she isn't shedding nearly as much. We've experimented with leaving her loose in the house when we go somewhere. The first couple of times she did fine. Then we started discovering evidence that she was napping on the couch. So, now we lay something across it if we leave her loose. Aside from the occasional foray onto forbidden furniture, she really does well. She doesn't get into anything or chew things. We even leave the bag of her dog food open and sitting on the floor, and she's never gotten into it. Our trash can is tall enough that she can't see into it so she usually leaves it alone -- the only time I ever caught her taking something out of it when when it was full with an empty salmon can right on top. I guess salmon was just too tempting too resist.

Eric had his yearly review last week and for the first time in 3 years got promoted to the next level of mechanic! He's been repeatedly passed over because of things that were honestly out of his control, which was frustrating. So, while it comes with a raise which is really nice, I'm just so thankful that he finally got promoted. Praise the Lord!

School is still going well and we are staying on track, so far. We've even worked a little bit ahead in a couple of subjects so that when we're taking time off after Bacon comes I won't feel like we're getting too far behind. Peabody is getting better about entertaining herself in another room or at least being kind of quiet when she's in the same room with us. Mama Dog lays under the Boogie's worktable and is long-suffering while Peabody blows in her ears, tickles her feet, or tries to cover her with a blanky. At some point every day Peabody needs some Honey time, so I teach like this:

I don't know how much longer Peabody, Bacon, and the book are going to all fit on my lap.

Peabody is learning things in school too, but I take no credit for this knowledge that she shared with me regarding anatomy and the source of maple syrup. And before you watch it I apologize for the shakiness, I really need to buy myself a tripod or something!



We went to a Fall Fest at the cousins' school. The girls went on a hayride, painted pumpkins, searched for candy in a "haystack" (Peabody took lots of extra turns but since she was the smallest kid there and hardly found any candy on her own no one seemed to mind -- grown-ups kept tossing candy to her, though) and had their faces painted. It was cold and windy but they had fun!

The parent who volunteered to do the face painting was AMAZING. She was so patient and really took her time. Every "mask" was incredibly done! I told her that if she ever wanted to give a class I would be a willing student.

Peabody's is already beginning to smear since she kept swiping hair out of her face

I had to wash off the bottom half of Peabody's after a while

Bacon is growing bigger and bigger. We can feel and see all of the wiggling around. Being pregnant is so weird -- there's another person inside of me. It's just such a strange thing. And cool! But weird. Tomorrow I will be 28 weeks and at the beginning of the third trimester. The next couple of months will fly by with the holidays and all that goes along with that, and then we'll just be a few weeks away from my due date!

I haven't done well with taking belly pictures this time, but here's one from maybe 23 or 24 weeks along.

Trip to Kentucky

At the end of September we drove to Kentucky to see my Mamaw, plus Uncle Furry and Auntie A who had flown out to visit as well as attend a wedding.

We've made the drive several times now, and each time it's a little different. Sometimes we go through Pennsylvania and Ohio -- this time we drove through Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia. We've driven Eric's Scion, my Saturn, and a rental car -- this time we took our recently-acquired van (more on that in another post.) It was the most comfortable trip we've made! Traveling in a van is the best way to go, people.

We left here very early in the morning on Friday, September 27.

I expected both girls to go back to sleep in the van, but only Peabody did. I think the Boogie was too excited. Once we got through Baltimore we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for a leisurely breakfast. It was probably a little too leisurely, adding a couple of hours to our day ... oops. The weather was perfect. Eric drove the first many hours, then I drove the rest of the way. We had zero incidents of car sickness, thanks to Dramamine, although immediately after I realized it was time for a second dose Peabody announced, "Honey, you know that medicine you gived me so my tummy wouldn't feel yucky? Well, my tummy feels yucky." When we arrived at Mamaw's apartment (almost 3 hours later than planned!) not only were they waiting outside for us, but so were a couple of my cousins plus my mom's brother! That was such a nice surprise. He lives in Nashville and I had no idea he was going to drive up to see us. We visited for a while then collapsed in our beds.

On Saturday morning we all (minus the two extra cousins) went out for breakfast, then headed to the Kentucky Science Center. My own family went there many times when I was growing up, and I was really excited to take the girls there. I was a little disappointed, though. There weren't as many interactive displays as I remembered, and as Eric pointed out, a lot of them were broken. Many things were just over the girls' heads, too, which I should have anticipated. We also skipped the IMAX theater, knowing that Peabody and the Boogie wouldn't be interested in sitting through a documentary. I think the girls enjoyed what they were able to do, but we went through all of the floors in about 2 hours. I guess we'll wait until everyone is a little older to go again on one of our trips out there.

We walked across the street to get some pictures with the giant bat in front of the Louisville Slugger Museum. That's another place we used to visit a lot when I was growing up, but we didn't go inside this time. Mamaw couldn't do that much walking, and we knew the girls would just be bored, and scared of the noise during the factory tour. Another time!

THEN we went to this awesome ice cream place called The Comfy Cow. We had ice cream for lunch! It was amazingly good. There was a coffee shop next door, so the coffee drinkers among us got lattes and mochas.

After "lunch" it was back to Mamaw's apartment for the rest of the day to visit and look through pictures. We said goodbye to my uncle that night since he was going home the next morning. It was so great to spend some time with him! After he left I realized that I didn't take any real pictures of him with any of us. I am always forgetting to take pictures and it's really frustrating.

Sunday was Eric's birthday. Last year we all, including Mamaw, were in Washington for his birthday. She made his birthday cake last year, too! After the morning service at her church we went to one of our favorite places for lunch, Mike Linnig's. Oh my goodness. So.much.food. We brought home almost half of it, probably! Eric was the bravest among us and ate turtle soup and deep-fried alligator. Sadly it was raining so we didn't get any pictures there either. After church that night we sang to the birthday boy and ate cake.

Uncle Furry and Auntie A left early Monday morning. Their flight was out of Cincinnati, so Eric made the pre-dawn journey to drop them off, then went back to bed! We lazed around for most of Monday. We girls had a tea party, something Mamaw and I used to always do when I was little. Her brother, Uncle Duck, stopped by to see us which was nice. Later in the afternoon we drove to the cemetery to see Papaw's headstone, and drove by Mamaw and Papaw's old house. Then we stopped by Hobby Lobby ... oh my! I've never been in one before. What a neat place!

After the girls were in bed Eric and I drove to a few different stores looking for chewable Dramamine (why is that stuff so hard to find?) and Cheerwine (which I'd been wanting to try for a looong time, and while in general I'm not much of a soda drinker, I'm now a Cheerwine fan. There's something about cherry soda that gets me. And I'm hoarding the last two bottles in my fridge.) After several stops we found both then proceeded to the White Castle drive-thru for sliders. And listen, I'm usually a purist but I must admit that I like my White Castle burgers with cheese. We stayed up way too late eating White Castle and visiting with Mamaw.

We left early Tuesday morning to make the drive back. The first few hours were hard! We were both so sleepy. We traded off driving several times instead of each doing one long shift. We were determined to make it home in fewer hours, and we did -- the trip back took about fourteen hours instead of the almost sixteen it took us to get there. The girls did so great in the car both ways. Thank the Lord for DVD players and "new" movies borrowed from cousins!

Mama Dog stayed at 52 while we were away and had a wonderful time. I think she was happy to see us, though.

It would have been nice to stay a little longer but we're thankful that we got to go! Mamaw suggested that she might consider a trip our way next spring, so we'll look forward to that.

Flashback

Here's a picture that was taken prior to my existence. Any guesses as to who this stunningly-attired young man is?

That is my Pops. He was about sixteen, I think, and was ushering at his brother's wedding. Smashing tux, and the hairstyle really completes the ensemble, don't you think?

I'll bet that on that day he never imagined that he would get saved, marry a beautiful blonde, have four children, complete a Naval career, and eventually become a pastor!

The Boogie's Perspective

After church one evening I asked, as always, "Did you have a snack in class?"
"Yes," the Boogie replied, "I had one small, thin cookie. That was it."
"Oh!" I said, "It sounds to me that you aren't very grateful for what you got. You should always be thankful for things you get, even if you think they are small."
"Well," she said honestly, "a big, thick cookie would be more grateful."

I sneezed and exclaimed, "Ouch!"
"What's the matter, Honey?" she asked. "What hurts?"
"My uterus!" I joked.
"What's a uterus?" she asked.
"It's an organ in my stomach, what the baby is growing in right now," I explained.
"Oh," she giggled, "it sounds like a planet."
Uterus: The Ninth Planet.


We were reading a book and there was an illustration of a group of people with upset faces. "Look at those people," I said, "they look very ... "
"Sad!" Peabody said.
"And what else?" I prompted, going for "angry" or "upset."
"Morose!" The Boogie said.
My jaw dropped. "Morose?" I repeated dumbly. She began to backpedal.
"Wait ... what does 'morose' mean?" she asked hesitantly.
"No, you're right!" I quickly assured her, "It means 'sad' and you used it right."
"Yeah, I know," she recovered herself, "I knew that's what it means."
"That's such a good word to know how to use correctly!" I praised her.
"Yeah, I know," she agreed.
Smart, and also humble.

She wanted a nurse's cap, so she made one. It looks like a bishop's hat but we didn't tell her that.

 

She definitely got that creative gene from my mother -- it skipped right over me!

Random Peabodyness

*This is an old post I started writing several weeks ago.*

We were wandering through the baby/toddler section in Target the other day. I rarely look in that section anymore, since the Boogie has outgrown it and Peabody doesn't ever need clothes. This time, though, we were looking for something for Bacon and we came across these. 

I love Peabody's face!

The Boogie just fits into hers now so will undoubtedly outgrow them soon, but since they are pajamas who cares if the pants and sleeves get too short? They were so delighted with them, especially Peabody. They call themselves the Batgirl Twins. The emblem on the front is all glitter, so they wake up with glitter all over their faces and in their hair.

Peabody announced, "I know da letter dat goes wif dis sound: tuh, tuh, tuh, tchurch!"

I asked the girls what they would like for lunch. Peabody chose "peanut butter an' choc'late" as always. She asked to make her own sandwich, so I helped her spread the bread with peanut butter and generic Nutella. I cut an apple into slices and gave them to her to put on her own plate. She carefully arranged them in a pile on top of her sandwich. "Dese are da finishing apple touches," she said.


I told them that if they ate all of their lunch they could have a treat. The Boogie ate hers, but when Peabody was finished with her sandwich and I asked if she was ready for her cookies, she said, "No, sank you." Refusing cookies? Unheard of! After our walk she decided she was ready. I set her up at the table and as I left the room I heard the Boogie ask something and Peabody reply, "Sure!"
"Hey, you already had yours! Did you ask for one of her cookies?" I demanded of the Boogie.
"No, I didn't," she protested, "I just asked if I could have a bite, and she said yes."
"You may not have any," I said. "You already had your treat and those are for your sister." But Peabody piped up, "We talked abou' kindness. And sharing is being kind." Well, whaddaya know. She does listen in Sunday school! For the past four weeks our lessons have centered on kindness, and we always discuss ways that we can be kind to others. I was so tickled to hear her say that.

"I wanna tell God sumping," she said at dinner.
"What do you want to tell Him?" I asked.
"I wanna tell Him dat I am really silly. And when I'm silly it makes God REALLY laugh."

Every morning when she gets up she asks for a snack. Not just any snack, but a "cereal snack" which is then followed up with the request "jus' cereal, in a bowl, wis no milk." I usually say no, and tell her that if she is hungry I will make her breakfast, which she then refuses. This morning when she asked for a snack I surprised her by agreeing. Her face lit up. "You said yes!" she exclaimed. She came over and patted my arm, beaming, "Dat's a good mama."

On our way out of the grocery store she wanted a flyer advertising next week's sales. It got left in the car, and tonight in the car she tried to look at it in the dark.
"Daddy, can you turn on da light?" she asked. He agreed at first, but when he realized why she wanted the light he changed his mind.
"You don't need the light on," he explained, "I said yes because I thought you were looking for something."
"Yeah," Peabody replied without missing a beat, "I'n lookin' for sumping to eat."

Sneak Peek

Look who we got to see the other day!

Bacon

Here are the big sisters, for comparison.

the Boogie

Peabody

The girls went with us to the ultrasound. They were very interested, especially the Boogie. Both kept asking, "What's that? What's that?" We saw some great shots of tiny hands and feet! It's pretty amazing to see so much. Everything looked great, for which we are very thankful.

And no, we did not find out the gender. I think Eric would like to know. He's wanted to find out each time. With the Boogie it did seem practical to find out. With Peabody I wanted to be surprised but Eric didn't, so I humored him. This time it's my turn to be humored. I do have a suspicion ... but I'm keeping it to myself! I will truly be delighted with either way.

This And That

The Boogie was chatting with FIL, discussing caterpillars and moths or something, when FIL said, "I'm perplexed! Are you perplexed?"
"Well, I would be," the Boogie said, "if I knew what it means."

Sometimes we watch old tv shows on MeTV, things like I Love Lucy and The Brady Bunch. The downside to watching things on tv is that there are commercials, and the channels that play older shows have commercials aimed for older people. So it follows that while watching Leave It To Beaver Peabody informed me, "I want a alert. If I fall down I can push da button," she indicated an imaginary necklace around her neck, "and da firefighters will run to me. And da police will get da bad guys away."

We watched one episode of Gilligan's Island. Just one episode. Almost a week later we went to Chick-fil-a, and the girls played in the play area for a while after they ate. There were two little boys around the same ages playing with them -- both boys were dark-haired with bowl cuts. In the car on the way home Peabody talked about them, referring to one as "dat boy wif hair like Gilligan's." Ha! She was right!

(Sidenote: since I've now been writing this post for approximately 27 days, I should point out that two or three weeks later she still talks about "dose boys dat look like Gilligan.")

Eric laid on the Boogie's bed for a few minutes at bedtime. After prayer and hugs they traded places and she immediately complained, "Daddy made one of my spots hot, and I don't like it when my bed is hot."

While snuggling Peabody I accidentally tickled her and she squirmed and giggled. "Dat tickles!" she exclaimed.
"I'm sorry," I apologized.
"No sorry!" she said, growing serious. "Don't say sorry for tickles. I LOVE tickles!"

Every now and then Peabody will come up to me and ask, "Can I see your uvula?" I don't know where that fascination came from.

Sometimes she will randomly exclaim, "Nip it! Nip it in da bud!" Bonus points to the person who knows where that came from.

One evening we had hamburgers, macaroni and cheese, and broccoli for dinner. When Peabody's plate was clean she announced that she was finished. "Would you like any more?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied, "May I have some more broccoli, please?"
"Is that all? Do you want some more burger or mac'n'cheese?"
"No," she said, "just broccoli."
A few nights later she asked for more peas and carrots. What a weird kid.

She prefaces words with "un" unnecessarily: glue is unglue, tie is untie, cut is uncut etc.

She and the Boogie play often with baby dolls, pretending that they are the parents. One day from out in the living room we could hear Peabody in the playroom sternly reprimanding her baby: "Don't do dat anymore! I told you five ... I told you six times!"

She asked to have her nails painted. "Honey, can you paint my toenails? Because dey are really not byoo-ah-ful."

The Boogie has been asking to do jobs for pay so she can save up money for a certain toy. After one of our "what can I do to earn some money?" conversations, Peabody asked, "Honey, can you give me a quarter for playing?" I guess it never hurts to ask ...

Since the Boogie is now in first grade, she's graduated from the beginners Sunday school class to the primary one, and to the older junior church class. She is SO excited to be in what she calls the "second" class. Every time someone asks her what grade she's in, she tells them first grade, and the second class at church. It's very strange for me to not have her in my class anymore, since I've taught her for almost four years. But I've still got Peabody who will be around for a while yet, and by the time she graduates up Bacon will probably be starting!

The Boogie has been asking for a jump rope for a while. The week before school started we found some at the dollar store so she chose a yellow one while Peabody picked blue. The Boogie couldn't wait to try hers out and as soon as we got home she went right to the backyard to practice. Within ten minutes she tripped up in the rope, did a face plant on the patio, bruised and scraped her chin, split her lip pretty badly, and knocked out a tooth! For a few seconds I panicked, thinking that she'd lost one of her adult teeth, but thankfully it was the last of her baby teeth in the front -- it had been loose though not quite ready to come out, so her gum was bruised too. Poor kid. What a way for her wish to play out! Once she got over the initial shock and pain she was pleased that she'd lost another tooth. She healed up pretty quickly. Thankfully it didn't happen any closer to school picture day!

Mama Dog has been banished from carpeted areas ever since we had them cleaned in the spring. At first we kept the pet gate up, then we took it down and chased her with a spray bottle back into the kitchen enough times for her to get the idea. She did pretty well staying on her rug just inside the kitchen door, but lately she's been pushing the envelope by laying just outside the kitchen door. The command "Get in the kitchen!" is heard multiple times a day. We let it go a lot, though, and just ignore her, as long as she stays just outside the door. Sometimes we'll tell her to get in the kitchen and she'll get up, turn around, and lay back down on the carpet with just her head on the kitchen rug.

"What? I AM in the kitchen."

At night the gate is put up and a drying rack blocks the door as well because, although she knows she isn't supposed to, she can easily jump over the gate. So:
1. Mama Dog knows she is supposed to stay in the kitchen.
2. Mama Dog knows she is not supposed to jump over the gate. If she does, she usually lays down right outside the kitchen door with her ears down, because she knows she's about to get into trouble.
3. For 17.5 of the 18 months that she has lived with us, she has not been allowed up on the furniture. Ever.

So, how is it then that when we occasionally forget to put the drying rack up, she will jump the gate, venture all the way across the living room, and sleep on the couch in the middle of the night? Usually Eric catches her since he's the first one up in the morning, but the other day she jumped back into the kitchen before anyone caught her -- the only way I knew she'd been on the couch was the fur on it! She is such a sneaky little booger.

And now, since I've been working on this post for forever, I think I'll just go ahead and publish it.

So stylish. Please note the hair sticking out of the hole on the side, since the hat is actually for a teddy bear.

Teatime

This Kid

 ... chose her own clothes and then proceeded to cover her legs, feet, and face with stickers.

... asked me to drop her off at work this morning. I suggested she could walk, to which she agreed. Then she cried bitterly because I would not actually let her leave the house by herself.

... thinks it's hilarious to repeat back to me each sentence that I say to her.

... gets all wired on chocolate milk or lemonade.
... knows how to push her sister's buttons.
... can turn a perfect somersault.
... asks every night if she can sleep in her sister's bed.
... covers her ears and tells me, "I'm brave!" when it's time to wash her hair.
... still sucks her thumb when she's sleepy or upset.
... loves to cut and glue.
... is generous with hugs and kisses.
... makes us laugh every single day and brings great joy to our family!