Thanksgiving 2011

I love Thanksgiving. I love the food, the football, the family, the leftovers. I love that everyone in our family, extended and otherwise, has their own thoughts on what the Thanksgiving tradition should be. Some like ham AND turkey, marshmallows OR pineapple on the sweet potatoes, stuffing OR dressing (I don't know the difference), Packers OR Lions? Really that last question was just to see if you were paying attention because this is really a no brainer. How about that schoolyard smack down?
I was referring to the Packer game but here is Isaac giving Oliver the old 1-2 count. Really? Pick on someone your own size.

This year we took the kids on Wednesday night to my mom's house and had Thanksgiving in Green Bay. The kids love to talk about Mimi's house and they love going there. When we ask them what they want to do in the morning, more often than not one of the kids will say they want to go to Mimi's house. They love to look at pictures of themselves at Mimi's house. When we can't see the moon at night they think that it is at Mimi's house. So we thought this would be a pretty big hit, which it was, but I always forget how hard it is on all of us to be out of our normal routine. They went to bed late on Wednesday and Rich had to sleep on the floor in their room because they were super freaked out about being in their pack n' plays. Especially Eloise.
Mmmmm, I love the flavors of Thanksgiving if I haven't mentioned it before. I woke up to kids running around screaming downstairs and the smell of sage stuffing. Traditionally we eat later in the day but for some reason it was really important to be eating the meal WHILE the Packers played so we ate much earlier- this is Green Bay after all. Here are the guys helping out in the kitchen. (Isaac, Oliver, Steve, Rich, Eloise and Jim)

Eloise is more of a daddy's girl every day.

This seems totally absurd but when we started to put the food out all of the kids (6 kids 5 and under) ran to the table and were begging to eat so rather than the adults at the big table all of the kids sat at the big table with the food while we just kind of stood around and watched and took pictures.


It really worked out great because the kids only lasted a few minutes then they took off to play and then we could enjoy our meal.

All of that food and all that Beckett wants is two pickles and a half of a roll. This kid just breaks my heart. Eat boy!
On that note, we had a bunch of blood tests done on Beckett to see if he had some food allergies or Celiac or liver problems or anything that could pinpoint why he not gaining weight at a higher rate. All of his labs came back normal which is great but now we have to just keep offering food and try to not make meal time a struggle.
Phew, that is better. Beckett is obsessed with dinosaurs (see the shirt?) and pretty much the only way to get him to eat is to pretend to be a dinosaur. Even on Thanksgiving.


The girls could not keep their hands off of the relish plate. I think Eloise had like 20 olives on her plate at one point so we had to remove it from the table. Then they proceeded to fish off of their neighbors plate.

I think in every picture I have Eloise is stealing from Addy's plate.

Oh no, tryptophan coma!!!!

Just kidding, it is part of the new 'touchdown' dance.

It's all fun and games until someone pukes. And that is exactly what happened about 8 times starting at about 6 pm. Poor little Ms. Addycakes was so miserable. I had to change my clothes twice, hers about 4 times and the tablecloth once. At one point she ran over to the toilet, lifted up the lid and toilet seat and wrapped her arms around the toilet and made retching noises that were clearly fake. Then said, "Can't puke Mama, can't puke." She was probably nauseous and didn't know what to do. All I know is that girl ate a whole boatload of pickles for Thanksgiving. It was a pretty miserable night for everyone not to mention that Eloise was so freaked out she refused to sleep in her pack n'play and would wake up and scream every time we tried to put her in. At one point in the middle of the night all three kids were up crying which hasn't happened in forever. Why is it when kids are sick all they want to do is drink milk. Addy was begging for milk all night and that was the last thing I was about to give her. I've learned my lesson with milk and pukey kids.
Anyway, it seems that we are all finally back to normal after both Rich and I had something during this week as well. Ugg. We had a really good two year run of essentially no sickness and it seems that we are just getting hit hard this year. Probably because now our kids are around a ton of other kids at the JCC or Eloise at school so I guess we are now in the circle of germs. Better now than when they were little.
Up next- what do you get when you let 3 two year olds decorate the Christmas tree?