Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Thanksgiving Eve Eve (& Just Regular Eve)

Our day to day life is best described as a wild ride. Thanksgiving Eve Eve was no exception. Now, it's fairly obvious I pack as much as I can into each day. I wouldn't want to miss out on anything, you know. It should come as no surprise that I had our/my evening planned down the minute so we could get to places on time and everything done before a busy couple of days. This meant making sure food was prepped and cakes were baked for daycare Thanksgiving on Wednesday (the day before actual Thanksgiving) AND getting us all to my niece's second birthday party on time. Everything was going fairly smoothly (we were only 15 minutes behind schedule). Harrison and Dad had gotten the tres leches cake ready to bake, the corn casserole had finished, and I was getting ready to hop in the shower......then the power went out.

I'm not talking about the power flickered and then came back on and everything went on. I'm talking about a neighborhood wide black out that made everything super creepy, prevented the cake from baking, laundry from running, dishwasher from finishing. Things that can throw one back hours to complete these tasks. And that's exactly what happened. But, even though I had to shower in the dark, we did make it the niece's birthday party, the minis got to run around with cousins, and by the time we got back home our power was on. It just meant mom had an extra late night trying to accomplish things so my Wednesday night wasn't as busy (because I had actual Thanksgiving prep to do). 

Harrison insisted on baking a tres leches cake after falling in love with the cake in New Mexico (read about that day here). 

While everyone else slept, I stayed up baking and getting ready for a busy, but special daycare day: Daycare Thanksgiving. This year Harrison and one of his buddies planned the meal and made several dishes. Of course, that still required prep work from me. I still managed to get some sleep so I was ready for the day's shenanigans. And there were oh so many of them!

Daycare Thanksgiving Day also marks the beginning of new daycare toys for Christmas (it's a thing at this daycare. Read about it here). The Monkey Noodles and Globbes were instant hits with all of the kids! The older kids were amazed that the Noodles stretched as tall as them!

And from there it was a free-for-all. Not exactly, but when you only have less than ten kids who haven't all been together since summer they have LOTS of ideas and it's pretty amazing to watch them catch up and play together as if they do it every day. 

My favorite comment from a kid, "uh Ash, I think you put the rolls a bit too close together." Called out on it!

Two kids created a turkey scavenger hunt for the other kids.

Each clue they had to find led to the turkey's hiding place.

The oldest mini held up a younger child so she could see the hidden turkey (behind my Keurig). As he lifted her, I heard him start to sing song from The Lion King. I cracked up as I snapped a picture. I never want to forget those little moments that make every crazy day worth it.

Harrison was so very proud of his tres leches cake.

So many games were played. Board games, ping pong games, the Floor Is Lava game. I think they'll all be happy to learn that one week's daycare gifts will be all new games to play!

The finished meal: mashed potatoes and gravy, glazed carrots, rolls, turkey, and corn casserole. All of it was delicious!

As in year's past, our afternoon was spent watching the movie Elf (our first Christmas movie of the year). Somehow, the oldest got caught between the couches and coffee table while watching the movie. Exactly how I'm not sure, but I "saved" him so all was good. Sometimes the less I know or understand, the better!

The desserts: gluten free vegan brownies and tres leches cake (totally not vegan...or gluten free). Also delicious!

It was bound to happen: one of the Globbles was popped open. I DO NOT recommend these if you have biters or chewers.

I couldn't say no to their play. They used chairs, tables, cushions. pillows, and anything else they could find to play The Floor Is Lava. After a good thirty minutes of that they took all of these items and built "an ultimate fort that has two floors." They stacked the white tables on top of the bigger table, grabbed blankets, pictures, anything decorative. They then sat in the fort and ate their snack. This is what childhood unplugged looks like.

I had a little time in between daycare closing and baking more pies and side dishes (to take to Thanksgivings tomorrow) and got to snuggle with a sweet boy, who happily watched the news with me. An absolutely insane and memorable 24 hours capped off by wine and putting my oven mitt through a freshly baked pumpkin pie (I usually do a lattice top when baking pies and didn't even stop to think about this as I grabbed the pie out of the oven). Ready for a day full of festivities now!

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

November Weekends

A sunny walk at Grays Lake Park was just what we needed.

Coming back from vacation (if you haven't read about our New Mexico fall break getaway, check out parts uno, dos, tres, and cuatro) to cold and snowy weather wasn't the easiest. Thankfully, we had some fun plans to keep us busy and downtime for us to rest. Weekend #1 found us enjoying sunny weather in Des Moines and at TWO birthday parties. Weekend #2 had Hubs and I away from the kids most of the weekend, with a Celebration of Life, friends, and work obligations. They got to enjoy a fun day with Grandma and Grandpa Sheaffer and we all enjoyed a short dinner together before going our separate ways. Weekend #3 was a weekend prepping for our busy Thanksgiving week, seeing Frozen 2, and yard work. I was very thankful for a weekend of errand running and prepping things because it will make my busy life easier in the weeks to come. 

Here are some pictures from these weekends:

Pretzels from the Mall after a quick run to the Museum.

Swimming birthday parties are the best!

Family birthday parties are the best because they have sooo much yummy food (and mimosas)!

Pumpkin bars gave them fuel for all those leaves!

I left myself very little time on this weekend. I slammed pizza for breakfast a half hour before going to lunch before the Celebration of Life. Quite the busy day this was! Also, I wore a dress. And make up. And I socialized with adults. Woah.

Meanwhile, the minis made some really cool ornaments with Grandma Sheaffer and played board games.

We tried El Barco for the first time. No margaritas since I had an igloo to build at the Children's Museum, but the food was delicious!

Elizabeth had a sleepover with neighbor friends and the boys had a sleepover with each other...or so they claim. I also call this 'going to bed' since they share a room, so every night could be considered a sleepover.

Making headway on the newest exhibit at the Museum: a Winter Wonderland. My programming and board member partner Liz had the idea for an igloo last year, while I begged for an ice floor. We both got our crazy ideas approved and in just a couple of weeks this exhibit will open. I beyond excited to share it with everyone, but it's taken up a lot of time the last few weeks.

Sunday's are for playing, getting into hardcore fights with your brother, and taking long naps. Or that's how we spent this Sunday.

Harrison made his case for a puppy for Christmas. The answer is still no (although he almost had me), but he made some excellent points.

My favorite moment of this weekend happened Sunday night. Sunday evenings are cleaning nights to get ready for our week. I was delivering clean clothes upstairs and as I came back down the stairs I saw a kid out by the trash can. I asked, "what is that kid doing out there?"
My husband replied, "emptying the vacuum." I proceeded to watch him drop the contents of the bagless vacuum all over himself, attempt to dump the rest in the trash can only to drop the container, which meant he had to climb into the trash can to get it. I couldn't contain myself. I laughed harder than I should have at his expense, but luckily he has a sense of humor and laughed at himself too.

The minis figured out different camera modes on their phone. They had some fun taking videos of each other. We had fun watching them.

The minis reward for running errands all day with us was seeing Frozen 2 at Flix Brewhouse. The Frostbite drink was delicious (and the movie was pretty good too!).

The minis wanted to make scrambled eggs for dinner while I got a start on coloring pasta (see all those boxes?!!?) for the Museum's Christmas sensory bin. They started off a little rough, but got it down.

Sunday was a stay home day. A relaxing morning led to an afternoon of raking leaves and finishing the yard work before winter. Everyone's hard work was rewarded with an entertaining game of Scrabble after dinner.

Grandma Sheaffer dropped off their dried ornaments from the previous weekend. I kept coloring pasta.

The cat had the neighbor kids and the minis in stitches as he explored the kitchen. Weird cat.

Hamburger soup for dinner.

A great way to end the weekend was to see our exhibit we're building (at the Children's Museum) featured on the news! Best way to drift off to sleep.