How was YOUR Thanksgiving??

Ours was great!

Mom's turkey was delish.
The side dishes had enough time to heat to perfection while the bird rested before being carved for serving.

Our entire Thanksgiving weekend in Vermont was a bittersweet one. It marked the first major holiday since Dad passed. I have to admit that I managed to get through the weekend without a lot of tears. I had my moments, mind you, but I don't think anyone noticed -- they were fleeting and I was good about 'putting on a good face'.

Grace and Dianna enjoyed themselves immensely, I think. They spent a lot of time across the street from the homestead at Amber's house. Thank goodness there's another little girl readily willing to play with them -- they'd be bored to death if left with no other playmates than eachother. ;)

Eleanor got the chance to spend lots of quality time with the littlest cousin of the family, cousin Zac's baby girl Breanna. Bre will be turning one year old in about a week and a half, so these two little girls are close enough in age to really enjoy eachother. It was quite cute watching the two of them toddle around together.

Will really enjoyed the weekend too. Even without a playmate of his own. He managed to keep himself busy, mostly quiet, and relatively out of trouble the entire time. He especially loved 'helping' Daddy and Uncle Bert when they were trying to figure out what was wrong with Mom's recliner. The verdict is that there's no fixing it.

I do have more pictures to share with everyone (LOTS more). I've got to watermark them first, then I'll be posting them. Be on the lookout!

Break out the popsicles

No, we're not experiencing a heatwave. Here at the Crazy House, we use popsicles to soothe any boo-boos that occur in/on/near the mouth. Now that Nora is toddling all around (she's walking at least 80% of the time!), we'll be experiencing MANY such boo-boos.

With any luck, our girl won't be sporting big nasty cuts or bruises for all of those holiday photo-ops. I realize it's a phase that all toddlers go through, but I just cringe when I look back and see photos documenting it so thoroughly.

Book Character pics

Here are the pictures I took of my big girls dressed up as book characters for school.

'Laura Ingalls', aka Grace

'Junie B. Jones', aka Dianna

Rugged little boys

Thank goodness the backpack I bought William for preschool is an LL Bean. Its a good thing because they have a 100% guarantee on their products. I'm REALLY thankful for that guarantee right now because William has already managed to wear a hole in his backpack.

The backpack Gordon and I bought him 17 days ago.

Anyone else have a child that could wear out a backpack quicker than my boy? That's got to be a record for sure!

So we'll be heading to the local LL Bean store sometime in the near future to see about getting this backpack replaced.

Update on dress like a character

Just a quick update for y'all, as I'm supposed to be in the shower already and soon heading to Mom's...

I took pictures of the girls all dressed up. I'll upload them later this weekend, probably. Check back.

Will did not dress as a character. I simply couldn't come up with anything with what we've got, though I thought of a few AFTER he left for school. He wasn't all into it anyway -- could have cared less, I think. Still, it might have been cool if I'd thought to dress him as Harold from Harold and the Purple Crayon BEFORE he left for school....that would have been easy. (A pair of jammies and a purple crayon -- voila!)

dress like a book character

The elementary school children are supposed to dress like a book character today for school. Grace is dressed as Laura Ingalls Wilder. Dianna is dressing as Junie B. Jones. At this point, I still have no idea what character Will should dress as. Guess I'd best put my thinking cap on.

First, I am curious.....if YOU were to dress as a book character, ANY book character, who would you dress as??

If I had to dress as a book character, I think I'd dress like Stephanie Plum, a character in Janet Evanonvich's series that starts with One for the Money. She dresses casual almost all the time. Jeans and t-shirts/sweatshirts mostly. Most important for Stephanie is that she have her mascara handy. While I'm not one to wear makeup on a daily basis, I can totally understand how one application of mascara can make a gal feel totally prepared to face the world (and chase down bad guys!).

Why not me??

I read an article in this morning's Hartford Courant. Well, no. I started reading the article. Then the girls' bus came, which signals my quiet time to end.

Anyway, the article was about this mom who is a blogger. It wasn't me. This OTHER mom apparently makes money blogging. She's wooed by major companies like FritoLay and Nestle. They send her Omaha Steaks, fly her all over the country, and everything!

It got me thinking....I wonder what (if any) kind of companies would try to woo me to blog about them.....then I realized that my blog is probably FAR too random for that. They'd probably want me to blog about their products and how I use them, which I would. But I like to brag on my kids far too much for their liking, I'd guess.

Ahh well.....the laundry needs to be swapped again so I guess I'd best go....

Shhh...do you hear that?

I just love it when I catch a bit of the kids' conversations without them knowing I'm listening. Like this morning, right after Nora woke. I hadn't gotten out of bed yet. I could hear through the baby monitor that she was stirring, but was waiting to see if she would settle back down for a few minutes or if she would call out to me right away.

Nora chose to call me.

Almost instantaneously I heard Will pipe up. He apparently felt the need to jump in as the role of Big Brother, Protector. In the sweetest voice ever I heard, 'It's ok Nora -- I'm right here with you!'

awwwwww...

My heart just melted!

Christmas is in the air

For the last couple of weeks I've been seeing signs of Christmas. Sales fliers arriving in the mail. Decorations up at the stores. I wouldn't be surprised to find Salvation Army Santas standing outside the stores with their big buckets, collecting donations from shoppers.

Am I ready for this?

HECK no!!

I don't think I'm going to be granted an extension of time, no matter how much I beg and plead that I'm simply not ready for the holidays. So the next best thing is to just buckle down and MAKE myself get ready for Christmas.

First things first, we need to celebrate Thanksgiving. I'm excited to say that we'll be heading to VT again this year. There we will do practically nothing besides eating. I might go for a walk or two with Mom. Knowing the big girls, they'll spend a lot of time with Amber (the neighbor's daughter).

Sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas we'll also be celebrating Will's 4th birthday. Although he's attending school, we won't be inviting any of his classmates this year. I'm sure this will be the last year I'll be able to get by with just inviting family. I wonder what theme I should use when decorating Will's cake. We've done dump trucks and John Deere tractors in the past. Any ideas?

Look out world, Nora's walking now!

Be sure to click on the arrow below so you can see our girl in action....Sorry the quality is so yucky....one of these days we'll have a real digital camera for taking video clips. For now, if I want to share a clip with anyone not sitting on my livingroom couch (meaning we used our old VHS camcorder), I have to use my cellphone video recorder.

Time to get out the Lysol

The sickies have hit our house finally. Don't get me wrong -- I wasn't hoping we'd get it here. It's just that practically the entire town has been battling one thing or another for a few weeks. I've been waiting for it to hit our house.

So far it's just Dianna who is down. She started with a plegm-y cough yesterday. A fever quickly followed. Today she is acting fine, but I'm keeping her home for the rest of the week probably.

I don't expect it'll take long for the rest of us to get something. I've never been a complete germa-phobe. I certainly don't keep the house as clean as it could be (we prefer a 'lived in' feel!). It's just bound to be that at least one more of us will get this too. Probably most of us.

This and That

Will ended out his first week at the new preschool pretty well. His teacher e-mailed me just to let me know she thinks his transition is going rather well. She said he did have a few moments where he'd ask for me and get a little teary, but that overall he was very happy and playing well. She said he's working hard at being a good listener, following direction, and learning the new routines.

YAY!

That yay is two-fold. First, that Will is doing so well. After the start of the week, I was worried for sure! Second, I love having a teacher who is kind enough to communicate the good stuff, not just bad stuff.

We've been really fortunate, really, in that respect. ALL of the teachers we've encountered with the girls have been awesome like that. I remember one time when Grace was in the first grade that her teacher (the beloved Mrs. Y) scheduled a parent-teacher conference with me. It wasn't an out of the ordinary conference, as it was one of the specific times the school sets aside time for these things. But it was the one in the springtime, when those kids who are doing well don't usually require a conference. Mrs. Y scheduled one with me. She wanted to meet with me in person to tell me how WELL Grace was doing with her reading skills, especially because Grace had been struggling in the early part of the year.

It's those kind, thoughtful times that really make you realize what high quality teachers we have. The personal care makes ALL the difference.

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Grace and Dianna are both officially done with soccer. Dianna's last game was over a week ago. Grace's season ended in a tournament held this past Saturday. Boy am I glad to be done with that -- standing outside in the freezing weather to cheer them on was getting tough!

Grace's newest endeavor will be basketball. Mrs. I, a fourth grade teacher at her school and mom to one of Grace's soccer teammates, suggested to Grace that she might want to try it out. Mrs. I coaches a team and thought Grace would do well to join them. She said Grace's running skill would be helpful, and that the extra practice of playing a game man-on-man would only enhance her soccer skills. I'm all for encouraging extra physical activities (as long as it's one per season!) and I LOVE basketball, so I talked about it a lot with Grace. She finally agreed that she'd try it out when I explained to her that it didn't matter that she didn't already know how to play -- Mrs. I will help her to learn how to play the game!

Grace will start her basketball practices this afternoon. They meet every Mon. and Wed. right at the elementary school, as soon as their school day is over. I will just need to pick her up at 5pm. How more perfect can it get? More running for Grace (in the physical sense) and less for me?!

Grace's first games won't be until December sometime. I'll have to check with Mrs. I to find out when for sure. It'll be good for the girls to get a few weeks' worth of practice in before they're expected to play a game. I hope it'll help Grace to feel more confident on the court.

The end of the silence

So the lovely silence from yesterday afternoon didn't last long. Right after I updated my blog, the phone rang. It was the school nurse.

:: Immediately I began thinking H1N1 ::

Nope. We dodged that bullet again.

It was simply that William was 'falling asleep' in class. So she asked if I could come pick him up. Which meant I needed to wake Nora.

SERIOUSLY?!?! Can preschool really be that boring that an almost 4yo boy would fall asleep?

Of course I went to get him. And you know what? Will never fell back asleep for me the rest of the day. I put him to bed early last night, which of course resulted in an even earlier wakeup for him today. I just hope that he will snooze a tad in the car while we run errands this morning.

Because if I get a call again today, I think I'll definitely lose my cool.

The sound of silence

Ahhhh.....do you hear that?? Me neither.

Will got on the school bus like a pro this afternoon. Nora went down for a nap as soon as we walked back inside the house. And it's been QUIET in the house ever since. I'm LOVING it!! I got to balance the checkbook in silence. I was able to have a 45+min long conversation on the phone without anyone whining, crying, or begging me to do something, get something, or help with something.

If I can keep Nora to this new schedule every day, I don't know what I'll do with myself! I just might have to plan on taking a regularly scheduled nap every day too. Just because I can!

For now, I'm going to go tackle a chore or two while I still can without being interrupted.

Back to Halloween

I figured I'd best post pictures from Saturday night before everyone starts asking me for them.

First, though, I've had a couple of people ask me about the Trunk or Treating we did on Friday night. It's an event where people bring their cars/trucks/suvs to a public area, open up and decorate their trunk or tailgate, and then hand out candy to all of the kids dressed in costumes. Some say it's a safer way to celebrate the holiday. To me, and to the kids I'd guess, it's just another way to get candy. ;) Me, I like the old-fashioned idea of actually going door to door for Halloween.

Saturday night we joined two of our neighboring families for trick or treating around our neighborhood. Rob and Margaret decorated their trailer for the holiday, hooked it to their quad, and Rob towed all three families around from house to house. We all had such a blast -- we've already decided we're doing it again next year!

Here are some pictures from Saturday night...the kids all crowding Mrs. D, our first ToT stop for the night....poor Will was the straggler the whole night long...

See? He's barely climbing the stairs as Dianna's running back to the trailer....Grace was already back!
At the end of the night we all hung out at Joe and Kathleen's house....the kids couldn't wait to get inside and start looking through their loot!

Holes in the floor of Heaven

Today was Will's first day of pre-school at the local elementary school. I have been a Nervous Nellie worrying myself over William getting onto the school bus and then knowing how to find his classroom once he gets to the school.

Below are pictures of Will leading up to the Big Moment...

We had some time to kill, so I was taking shots of William while he played...I LOVE this one

At first Will asked Daddy if he would sit with him on the bus. I was pleasantly surprised that Will didn't put up a fuss when Gordon told him that he wasn't going.
This is the last I saw of my boy -- I couldn't see where he was sitting as the bus pulled away...I think he searched out Cecelia and Olivia, our neighbor's preschool aged daughters. I've been telling him for over a week now that he could sit with them on the way to school and sit with Grace or Dianna on his way home.

Now I bet you're wondering where the title of this blog post fits in with Will's getting on the bus.

Lemme explain.

Right as Will was getting on the bus, Gordon and our neighbor Margaret commented that they felt a raindrop or two. Then it started sprinkling more. The rain only lasted a minute or two, but it made me think of the song Holes in the Floor of Heaven sung by Steve Wariner. The chorus goes like this:

Cause there’s holes in the floor of heaven
and her tears are pouring down
that’s how you know she’s watching
wishing she could be here now
and sometimes if your lonely
just remember she can see
there’s holes in the floor of heaven and she’s
watching over you and me

I started getting all teary eyed as Miss Wendy pulled the bus away, carrying William off to school. I just know that Dad was watching Will too. No need for me to worry about Will as he makes his way off the bus and to his new classroom -- Dad's watching over him.