Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2013 will be remembered as the one with good food with friends, lots of fun, quality family time, and . . . blood. I'll have to explain.

This year we hosted Thanksgiving--our first. Henry used his and Theo's Thanksgiving art work to decorate the house. We had the Savage and Curtis families with us and everyone pitched in to make the meal a success. It was a real Thanksgiving feast, and I don't think too stressful for any of us. The dinner was delicious and we only started about 15 minutes late!

 Henry's placemat

 

Theo's turkey

 Henry's little pilgrim.
Here he somewhat relates to the pilgrims: "I can cle[a]n my bed"

He told me all of the chores little pilgrim children had to do. He seemed impressed and very glad he wasn't one of them.

 

This one's gotta be my favorite.

Henry put this up as guests were arriving--a pilgrim and an Indian holding hands.

This year the boys took special note of the shirtless Indian men from the books we checked out from the library about Thanksgiving. For some reason it fascinated them. Oh, boys.

 Just another of Henry's welcoming signs--Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

This one's my other favorite. At preschool Theo made a list of all the things he's thankful for. His "big" (as they call the high school students) said when she asked Theo what he was thankful for the first things he said were, "Heavenly Father and Jesus." She said she was really surprised and decided to draw a giant cross to symbolize them. I thought that was so cute! 

And of course, Thanksgiving wouldn't have been completely celebrated if Henry didn't dress up like a pilgrim. Sadly, I didn't get a picture. I was a bit too busy. But, he did look pretty cute in his homemade pilgrim hat!

Here's the whole gang minus the Freestone and Savage children. This picture was taken at about 10 pm so they were in bed. We don't really look it, but we were all exhausted. After dinner we cleaned up while the children watched Mickey's Christmas Carol, and then we put the kids to bed and played Careers. It was an old but really fun game!

* * *

Then the next two days we went swimming at the "volcano pool" and hung out at the Children's Museum in Decatur. Todd has been working so hard recently, so many hours, that the time we spent together that weekend was priceless. We never tired of each other, and it was so much fun. It was a much needed break. We all loved it. I'm so thankful for my family!!

See the volcano in the background?

So that's what I look like cross!?

On the way home we made two stops: Gifford, IL to drop off some goods for the tornado victims, and the Custard Cup--of course. 

* * *

I almost forgot about the bloody part. So, the first bloody incident happened on Thanksgiving. While the adults were sitting, eating, and chatting in the kitchen the children were playing in the living room. Suddenly I hear a crash and then Henry crying and wailing. We ran into the living room to find Henry's mouth overflowing with blood and his upper lip super puffy. The other Henry had swung Henry around and accidentally crashed him into the coffee table. I ran my Henry up stairs to get him cleaned up and calmed down. His cut lip didn't require stitches, but it just hurt a lot. When he visited the dentist the next Monday the hygienist said he tore his frenula attaching to his upper lip, in addition to his teeth cutting his lip. Boy, mouths can sure bleed a lot!

The second incident happened the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Theo, Henry and Todd were playing Zelda in the living room (not the nintendo/wii version, but pretend) and Theo was crawling between the bookshelf and couch. As he wiggled by he nudged the bookshelf just enough to make the books on the top shelf tip over, pushing a heavy candle, in glass, off and right onto his head! The glass didn't cut his scalp, but the hard impact just split his skin right open. The cut was about an inch long on the crown of his head. It bled a lot, too. Todd and took him to the insta-care and they were able to use skin glue. He fell asleep on the way home and napped the afternoon away. Todd stayed home from church to take care of him.

So, I guess we're just at that accident prone age. Holidays and get togethers with other little friends are prime time for accidents like this--I remember all too well from my childhood!

Here's hoping for a less bloody new year!

Christmas update to come . . .