Bok, Bok, Bok

Whoops, my turkey sounds like a chicken, that is because it was! We had a last minute change in plans for Thanksgiving because of illness so we ended up staying home with the kids and I had to scramble to figure out a proper Thanksgiving meal the night before. We were going to go to my sister's and have our meal during the afternoon nap. I had it all planned out with bringing 3 pack n'plays and 3 booster seats and their pajamas in case they fall asleep on the way home. I look forward to a break in the routine. Routine is really good but it does get tedious for all of us and I need to work to be a little more flexible. Holidays are a perfect excuse. I was totally bummed because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and it would be first big holiday we would be celebrating in Wisconsin.

Those of you who know us or have followed our blog know that we have so much to be thankful for, more than I could even list. But this year seems to be about health. I can count on one hand the number of times that one of the babies have been sick and that was nothing more than a sniffle. So we stayed home rather than the potential for exposure to illness. We are not officially under RSV restrictions like last year but may be during the height of RSV season in March/April. For now, we are just being sensible and cautious which sometimes is no fun. But we tried to make it fun.
Anyway, we kept our normal schedule today but allowed some special treats like watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade on tv. They kind of liked it for about a minute. They don't know any characters so the Dog Championship on Animal Planet was way more exciting. I think my ears are still recovering from all of the yelling.
After going to Whole Foods to pick up the food I didn't want to make from scratch, the kids read some books while I made lunch. These are not posed, this is how they were sitting reading.

I think they were sitting below the lookout window so they could jump up and look out at the slightest hint of a truck, dog or fire engine.

Another example of Crazycakes.

This one didn't end so well.

I picked her up and took her out and put her back on the ground as Rich called for help in changing Beckett's diaper. He can be just a slippery little worm when he feels especially attached to his poop-filled diaper. The wiggling usually results in a total mess so I was helping in order to preserve his clothes. Then we heard a big thump and Addy screaming. She must have crawled back in the truck and then lost her balance because she was sitting leaning up against the stair banister. If she was a cartoon character she would have birds flying around her head.

Since we never eat meals together as a family (because of the feeding table) I thought I would take advantage of the borrowed booster seats and have all of us eat Thanksgiving together. The problem is that really all of our dining room furniture is in storage and we only have a little table in the dining room and only 4 chairs. I moved the feeding table into the dining room and the little table into the kitchen and Rich attached the booster seats. Then I cooked like crazy while the kids were sleeping. Of course the girls woke up early (slept 1.5 hours) and were sooooo excited to see the booster seats and wanted to sit in them immediately. They had a snack and practiced coloring. I think being in the booster seats rather than the feeding table helped to eliminate the crayon munching.
Eloise was really going to town. Little thing could was just barely tall enough.



Foiled again. I guess I hadn't used the oven in this house yet and didn't know that the oven temperature was really off. Therefore, everything took twice as long to cook which threw off the whole eating dinner together thing. I was still bustling around the kitchen and we decided to eat after the kids went to bed. I only say that to explain why the table looks totally empty. We probably should have used plates or the trays but they looked so grown up sitting at the table by themselves.





I love turkey at Thanksgiving but can't deal with the carcass and all of the turkey breasts were sold out so we had pumpkin risotto stuffed chicken breasts instead. It didn't matter, we are all about the stuffing, cranberries and pumpkin pie anyway. Whipped cream and pumpkin pie is the best, well most fun, part of the meal for kids. I don't recall if they had whipped cream before but they thought it was so funny and the pumpkin pie was just a bonus as you can see.

"I'm having a little pie with my whipped cream."

"I'm a little scared. This whipped cream is as big as me."

Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!