Is Thanksgiving Over Yet?

Boy, was this a busy holiday week!

Claudia's first trip to the theatre

Our festivities started Wednesday night with a trip to the Hobart's Art Theatre to see Madagascar 2 (or Gas Car as Claudia insisted). This was Claudia's first trip to a theater and she shared the experience with her cousins and aunt and uncle. We all had a fun time watching the movie, eating popcorn and drinking soda! Claudia was exhausted after the show and immediately fell asleep on the ride back to Valpo. I think she enjoyed her first theatre experience!

Thanksgiving morning came early for us thanks to Claudia... She's always an early riser. We spent the morning lounging around the house in our jammies and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I've never been to New York City. After watching the parade, I think a trip out east is in order for the Stage Family. My cousin's husband used to work in Manhattan Monday through Friday and commute back to Chicago on the weekends to be with his family. He had a loft in Manhattan which was vacant on weekends. It was offered to Brian and me for weekend trips. We never took advantage of the offer and now regret it because John sold the loft and the opportunity for free lodging has expired.

The rest of the morning was spent raking leaves, bathing the kids and dog and making a necessary last minute trip to the grocery store. I was responsible for bringing a salad and cranberry sauce to Brian's sister's house. The sauce had been made on Wednesday, but I waited to make the salad until Thursday.... when I opened the box of salad greens that I bought at Sam's Club, I found them to be spoiled. Boy, was I mad!

The rest of Thanksgiving Day was spent at Brian's sister's house in Bolingbrook with Brian's mother's side of the family. Once we arrived in Bolingbrook, we found it to be not only a family gathering, but a convention of the Bumpus hounds (from the movie, 'A Christmas Story"-the numerous smelly and bothersome hound dogs of the next door neighbors, the Bumpuses. The dogs destroyed the turkey prompting the family to go out and have Peking duck in its stead, resulting in a giggling fit by the mother and the boys). The house filled with dogs! Two greyhounds, one dachshund, one rat terrier,and one mutt (ours). Turkey and Bumpus hounds are never a safe mix! Lucky for us the turkey was not snatched by the hounds...

On Friday, we went to my mom's house for a second Thanksgiving dinner with my sister's family, the Bentons. The kids spent time decorating Grandma's Christmas tree and did a superb job, even if all the ornaments are on the bottom half of the tree! We took a picture of all six grand kids next to the tree for Grandma's photo Christmas card. It's sooo hard to take a picture of six kids because one always is looking away or has their eyes closed or is busy peeing on the floor! The evening ended with tired kids and a short ride home. Thank goodness!

Cheese!

Saturday was Brian's 39th birthday. He was woken up by his two kiddos climbing into bed with him. William actually fell back to sleep but Claudia continued to stay awake jabbering.... Later that afternoon, we met Gayle and the kids, minus Jordan, at Bass Pro Shops to see Santa and eat supper. The kids enjoyed telling Santa what they wanted for Christmas- fishing poles (William), stuffed raccoons (Claudia), video games (the older kids).... and checking out all the holiday activities that were offered. We had a good but slow meal at the restaurant. The kids had a hard time sitting for so long... we knew it was time to leave when Claudia pinned Sydney to the floor after a trip to the bathroom. Who knew that Claudia had all that strength in that dinky body!?!

Wake Up Daddy! Wake Up!

Brian, Claudia, me

Santa and the kids

Claudia's raccoon, Mrs. Softie, attacking Brian

On Sunday Brian's parents came over to celebrate Brian's birthday. They stayed for supper and birthday cake. Brian's dad fixed my printer so that I can now use the scanner. Mimi entertained the kids so that Brian and I could pull the Christmas decorations out of the attic. We put out just a fraction of our holiday "stuff". We have way too much as far as decorations go. A couple of years ago, I gave away a lot of decorations, but, I swear, they multiply during the year up in the attic (maybe they're fertilized by the bats!) We still need to take down our Nativity scenes (yes, we do have more than one), put up the outdoor lights, head to the tree farm for our tree and decorate the tree.

Sunday ended with a really late night of work for Brian. I found him at 2:00am at work on the computer getting ready for a Monday morning presentation and a Tuesday job interview!

Happy Birthday to you.....

What a busy holiday week we had, but it was fun!

Can't wait for the rest of the holidays to come!

P.S. Brian has a big interview tomorrow. Please say a prayer for him. He really wants this job! Thanks!