Saturday mid-day

RUS has had a bad cold and cough and J was wiped out from hearing RUS cough all night long and get up extremely early in the morning. So we all snuggled on the couch for a few minutes and I snapped this picture.

Note that R is wearing her special baking apron (thank you, thank you Great-Grammy and Aunt L!) because we had just finished kicking off our holiday baking season with a fresh-baked batch of french buttercream cookies. YUM.

The holiday baking so far is going well. We've done sugar cookies (although I still have to frost them), french buttercream, and just tonight I baked two loaves of applesauce bread. Only five more to go!

Reflections on the Thankful Hands Project

The Thankful Hands Project was eye-opening for me for a variety of reasons, and I'm very thankful we extended the activity to a month rather than a single afternoon spent creating a "thankful wreath" or some other thankful craft.

I started off the month thinking we would have a wonderful list of people and "really important" things on our thankful hands, ready for us to read off on Thanksgiving Day. But I also knew that I wanted R and RUS to choose what they themselves were thankful for, and I expected to learn some interesting things from them.

I wasn't prepared, however, for how taken aback I was going to be with R's first choice for something to be thankful for: teeth. Day two, "Daddy" made sense. But then we moved into flowers and pandas. I started to worry that the thankful stuff was just being randomly picked.

Then I sat back and really thought about this. First, I can set examples for other kinds of things to be thankful for (hence my creation of a thankful hand for J's and my grandparents, for instance) and include them up there myself. Second, I need to appreciate some of these things in my life too--once you start to think about pandas with an eye towards being thankful for them, you really do see them in a new light. Third, this is about listening to my kids and realizing what it is they are highlighting about their day. Listening isn't a small thing at all--it's a huge thing, and something I have to consciously do better where R and RUS are concerned.

So I started listening. And when I started to get worried again that a lot of imaginary things were coming up on our thankful hands (dragons? unicorns?) I reminded myself that imagination is, once again, not a small thing and that I am incredibly thankful for my children's willingness to believe in impossible things. I also found, interestingly enough, that this attitude of thankfulness motivated me to be more broadly thankful in my everyday life and to start to appreciate things for what they are, living in a spirit of thankfulness for the world around me.

I'm thankful for being asked to take a moment and pause.
I'm thankful for this opportunity to listen to my children.
I'm thankful for the moments we shared and they treasured and recorded on these hands.
I'm thankful for the memories we built doing this.
I'm thankful for the lessons I learned from my children and family.

Black Friday Park Pictures

Our Black Friday was pretty interesting this year. We weren't planning on going shopping because J had agreed to work for Grampy for most of the morning, and we decided against having Grampy babysit at midnight in order to go out late at night. As it turned out, though, RUS, who has been battling a bad cold and double ear infection, had other ideas. He got up at 3:30 and would not go back to sleep. Finally, at 5:30 J had had it and said, "If I'm going to be up anyway, I might as well GO SOMEWHERE!" so he went to a couple stores and made it home in plenty of time to get ready to go working with Grampy.

After J and Grampy left, I took the kids to the park--it was still early in the morning (around 9!) and we had a blast.

Today I am really missing my grandmother

My grandmother, my father's mother, died nine years ago. Shortly after J and I started dating, in fact, so he never met her. Most of the time when I think of her it is a happy, positive thing, because I have so many many wonderful memories of time spent with her as a child--she lived in Minnesota and we were in Ohio, so she would come visit us once a year and stay for two weeks at a time and it was really, really, really wonderful to have that extended time with her. When she died, she was prepared, and she went into the hospital with an uncurable condition knowing she wouldn't go through surgery or any drastic procedures. So as many members of my extended family as could all went out and stayed with her for a few days. I remember that time fondly--it was incredibly sad and I cried a lot, but we also laughed, told stories, and I learned more about my father's childhood and experiences growing up than I had at any other point before.

But today I just miss her so much. I keep remembering random bits of advice she gave me over the years. Just little stuff. Like, she told me that when she moved to Minnesota she stopped taking cream in her coffee because so many people drank it black. For some reason that stuck with me and I never took cream in my coffee either once I started drinking it (which was years and years after she told me that, funnily enough). She had a lot of wisdom, just sensible knowledge and advice built up after years and years of living a good life and watching others. And I am only just now starting to appreciate and understand many of the lessons she taught me.

I was thinking about her at the dinner table because we were talking about gift giving and how you have to just give a gift without attaching too much importance to what the recipient does with it after you've given it. My grandma always said to me that you have to give a gift with no expectations about how or what people will do with it, otherwise it's not really a gift.

So at the table I teared up and of course J and the kids were wondering, "what's wrong, Mommy?" I told them, and I started talking about my grandma's advice, and R said, "I know something else she told you."

Surprised, I said, "What was it, R?"

And R says, "When you're having fun, that's when it's time to leave."

She's right. That was something else my grandma used to tell me. I told it to R the other day when she was getting upset about having to leave a birthday party we were at. I told her the whole story, you know, "I'm going to tell you something my grandma used to tell me. She always used to say, 'it's better to leave while you're still having fun than it is to wait until the fun is completely over and then leave.'" I don't know that R completely believed me, but I'll fully admit that a lot of my grandmother's advice was stuff I didn't really understand until long after she'd given it to me.

Anyway, Grandma, I miss you. I so wish I could talk to you about everything that's happened over the last nine years. I love you.

Thankful Hands: Full Recap

I posted earlier this month about our Thankful Hands project and thought I'd give an overview of how the project went for us. It was a HUGE hit, for everyone! We all really got into it, so much so that R wants to do "Thankful Ornaments" during our Christmas season--I don't know if we'll make it as systematic as we did for Thanksgiving, but I really like the idea of continuing to focus on the many things we are grateful for in our life and of helping the children both understand the concept of being thankful.

Here's the whole window, with all of our Thankful Hands filled in. There are more than the 24 Thankful Hands because some days I made an extra Thankful Hand (the daily ones were really for the kids to do themselves) and because on a few occasions R had extra things she wanted to be thankful for, and rather than take a hand from a future date, we just had her make an extra hand.

Day 1: Teeth
We talk about why teeth are important--we couldn't talk or eat very well without our teeth! Yay teeth!

Day 2: Daddy. Enough said.

Day 3: Flowers. Flowers brighten our days and we love picking them with Grammie.

Day 4: Pandas. I remind R that we read a book about baby pandas. R talks about drawing pandas at school with her friend G.

Day 5: Birthday Parties. RUS shares this one the day after going to his friend L's birthday party.

Day 6: Dragon.

Day 7: Ice Cream. This is another follow-up from the birthday party excitement. Both R and RUS were pretty excited about ice cream.

Day 8: Grammie and Grampy. This is in honor of their 37th wedding anniversary, which R reminds everyone of every time we read this particular Thankful Hand.

Day 9: Stuffed animals.

Day 10: Unicorns. R's drawing is partly inspired by a unicorn puzzle she received for Halloween from Grammie and Grampy.

Day 11: Butterfly. Butterflies are a popular thing to draw in this house.

Day 12: Lips. Also very important for very many things, as discussed under Day 1. This time we also mention giving kisses!!

Day 13: Doctors.

Day 14: New Year's Day. R begins this Thankful Hand by drawing large glasses, in honor of the "2010" glasses that Grampy bought for all of us to wear for that New Year's Eve party.

Day 15: Crocodiles. This one is from RUS, who said Crocodile about 10 times while I was drawing the picture for him.

Day 16: Leaf

Day 17: Mommy and Daddy Getting Married. 

Day 18: Mommy. From RUS this time.

Day 19: Snow.

Day 20: Horse. R draws and writes this one completely independently: we had worked together on a Puzzle Buzz drawing activity which showed you how to draw a horse, and I talked with her about how to write horse. She re-created the drawing and wrote horse entirely on her own!

Day 21: Apple Pie. This apple pie has bubbles coming out of it. YUM!

 

Day 22: Christmas Tree.

 Day 23: Ballerina.

Day 24: Grandma and Grandpa. R insists that I write it this time.

Additional Thankful Hands:

"Mail from friends and family": Many days, R receives more mail than J and I do, what with her magazine subscriptions, two pen pals, letters from grandparents, and cards and other fun things from miscellaneous family members. We talk about being thankful that we can keep in touch with people even when they are not nearby.

"Great-Grandparents": I write that I am thankful for all of J's and my grandparents and I write their names all on a hand with a few hearts. R helps me add some more hearts.

"Teachers." We are very thankful for all the hard work teachers do to help us learn.

"Braden": the kids are participating in a "pajama exchange" with some moms I know online and after receiving her pajamas and putting on her new pair and getting ready for bed, R tells me, "Mommy, I'm thankful for Braden." I told her that was a wonderful thing to say and she immediately runs to her art table and starts making a Thankful Hand for Braden. He is wearing roller skates in her picture.

 "Kitty":

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had such a lovely Thanksgiving. J served up two tofurkeys, baked with tons of carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions, plus sweet potato cornbread and mashed potatoes. Grammie brought over green beans amandine and brussels sprouts with a maple-mustard glaze (delicious!) as well as a homemade cranberry compote. For dessert we had apple and pumpkin pie.

Before Thanksgiving, R and I spent some time with her new Fancy Nancy's Thanksgiving Feast book from Grammie and Grampy. In that book, Fancy Nancy is disappointed to have to eat at the kids' table because the kids get paper plates, paper napkins, and plastic cups, so she's thrilled when her uncle asks if he can switch seats with her and she gets to sit at the adult table and use the fancy china and linen napkins.

At our Thanksgiving meal, we pulled out our fancy china--I love being able to use it for special meals!--and we let R have her own china teacup to drink milk out of. She was so tickled!

The night before Thanksgiving, R helped me make napkin holders for everyone. We cut toilet paper rolls in half and covered them with brown construction paper, and then drew and cut out turkey bodies, beaks, and wattles. R did all the beaks and she and I both did wattles, and I did all the turkey bodies. We then traced R's hand and cut out various colors to make the turkey feathers, and R drew eyes on all of them and wrote everyone's names on the bottom of their holder.

Here's a more close-up view of the napkin holders and turkey centerpiece R made at school. I love them! They really made our table look so festive!!

On another note, we finally convinced R to let RUS move into her high chair, telling her that she was going to get her very own big girl chair--so that we could finally get rid of our huge plastic high chair. She had already agreed that she was going to move when she was 4.5, but she's not quite 4.5 yet (still two weeks to go!) so we had to wheedle her into it. She was really resistant to moving until we told her that she could put her name on her chair and decorate it however she liked. She wrote her name and cut it out, and then drew a heart and cut that out too. They are taped to her chair. THEN she wanted to make name tags for everyone at the table, so she wrote everyone's name, cut them out, and taped them to their assigned chairs.

Both kids played together so well before our meal while J and I were finalizing all the touches (I was getting the china out and helping clean/put things away while J was doing all the cooking). At one point R came running into the kitchen saying, "RUS wants to wear a dress!" I just kind of laughed and said, "Okay, whatever!" thinking that she was maybe pulling out her dress-up suitcase and digging into the princess dresses. But this is what we saw when they came back out of her room about ten minutes later:

R had pulled one of her actual dresses out of the closet and put it on RUS. And then he grabbed his favorite princess accessory--her princess hair dryer--and came out and dried his hair while showing off his fancy new dress. They were both so tickled. And I took a picture to document the occasion.

When Grammie and Grampy finally arrived, we got all the food on the table and sat down to eat. Here are the kids gearing up for the meal:

And here's Grammie giving me the side-eye while stirring the gravy (I hope she doesn't hate me for putting this picture online!)

While J carved up the tofurkey!

And here's everyone sitting down to enjoy the meal! It was delicious and we just finished up most of the leftovers today. I just love this meal and all the leftovers that go with it.

Turkey vs. Monster

Daycare Thanksgiving Luncheon

The kids' daycare does a Thanksgiving meal every year where the parents can go in and eat lunch with the kids. J and I both love it. We've gone every year although this year was the first time J actually couldn't come because of a work obligation. 

The toddler classes eat first, since the kids have to get down for their naps right after lunch. Here's RUS enjoying his meal. He was so tickled that I was there. He kept pointing to me and saying, "MY mommy!" to anyone who would listen. And he was absolutely delighted that he got a cookie as part of his meal. (Well, it came after he'd already eaten a bunch of food, but still.) 

And then I headed over to R's Pre-K room to have "second lunch." I didn't actually eat this time though--I just sat with R while she and her classmates and teachers all had lunch together. Everyone had worked hard decorating the tablecloths and getting everything all jazzed up for the feast, so she and I talked a lot about the animal stamps they'd used and the hand turkeys just about everyone had decorated. So fun!

When I came to pick up the kids in the evening, I also remembered to take a photo of the "Thankful Turkey" that R's class made. Each child took two colorful hands to make a "feather" for the turkey. On one hand they signed their name. On the other hand, their teacher wrote down what they were thankful for. R's said that she was thankful for "my family and my baby brother."

 Here's a closer-up view of the turkey. R's hands are the purple ones in the center at the top.

And here's a picture where you can actually read what's written on the hand: