Thanksgiving 2008

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. It was delicious and fun. I made lots of food and now we have lots of leftovers.

Here's Joseph sitting down to his feast.

Here's Brigham digging in to his. He was the most excited for Thanksgiving of all the boys.

And Mosey getting ready for some turkey.

Mosey was the last one at his table (little kids' table). I asked him if he wanted to come sit with me (with the adults) but he was perfectly happy sitting over there eating in peace and quiet.

Here I am. In a mirror.

After eating, all the kids went out and rode bikes in the cul-de-sac. That's the right idea! Burn off some of those calories to get ready for more! Are you jealous of our beautiful Austin autumn? It was perfect weather, probably 70 degrees, slightly overcast. The leaves are starting to turn here and it is just beautiful.

One of my pies. An extra from all the pies I made last week for the ward missionary lunch.

And another. I think this was my favorite.

Banana cream pie for Ben.

Blueberry cheesecake for Brigham.

Plain ol' pumpkin (another extra from last week).

The lineup. We had 8 different deserts for 16 people. Yeah, we had enough!

I also made sweet potato casserole (with a pecan-brown sugar crust), stuffing (with sage sausage and apples and dried cranberries), corn (with butter and salt and pepper), and green beans (sauteed with carrots, mushrooms, and onions).

I really love baking but I don't do much of it anymore. So it was great fun to really get into it for Thanksgiving. Now my kitchen is a disaster. Maybe it will clean itself if I ignore it for long enough?

And we discussed sports, religion, and politics around the table, so a good time was had by all.

Funny, funny, funny

My cousin posted this on her blog and Ben and I laughed SO hard.
It may not be as funny to anyone who wasn't aware of the big BYU v. U of U game last weekend. But it's still so funny, it's worth 3 minutes of your time.
I think it was worth BYU's loss just so someone could make this video. (of course, I'm not much of a college football fan anyway, so that's easy for me to say).

No idea what to say about this...

Joseph likes to keep his little sacrament cups from Church. He was doing this with them on Sunday, while Ben was up giving a talk at the pulpit. I had to take them away from Joseph because I didn't think it very good form for me to be cracking up while my husband was speaking.

I don't even know where he gets this from.

7-year-old swearing

So here are the insults that get thrown around by my 7-year olds.

• Poo-poo head (ok, it is mostly Mosey who throws this one around)
• Dead Poon
• Rotten Wiggy
• Bad Boo-Boo

These are very serious insults. To call someone a Rotten Wiggy is pretty much just asking to start a fight.

Does anyone know what a Dead Poon is?

Closet Republican

So this is what I found on my computer when I got up Friday morning.

Please, click on it to see it bigger, you really must.

Mosey is a very funny child, that's all I can say.

He somehow navigated to this page all by himself, and filled in all the boxes himself, too. He even filled out the Visa card number (not the right number, thank goodness).

Too bad the National Republican Trust has a $5,000 limit, because Mosey was all set to donate almost $79 trillion!

A day in the life

A friend of mine challenged us to do a "Day in the life" post. So here it is! November 20, 2008.
Morning finds me snuggled in next to my best buddy, Mosey. Ever since I came back from the hospital, he refuses to go to sleep without me. Usually Ben takes him upstairs after he's fallen asleep, but sometimes not. We're being watched over by Polly the dog and Rudolph the deer.



Read it and weep. Yep, I get to sleep in until 7:30. Homeschooling. Sounds better and better, doesn't it?



Hmm. I really need to paint my toenails again.



Mosey woke up while I was in the tub. Now it's his turn!



Dressed and ready to face the day. Please, no sniggering at the horrible wallpaper in my bathroom. I hate it too.

Breakfast. Delicious and nutritious Fruit Spins. Usually they eat something a little healthier (no, really, it's true!), but Mosey snuck a box of these in my shopping cart on Monday.

A little spiritual food to go along with the Fruit Spins.

Time for lessons. We own nearly all of the Magic Treehouse books, in case anyone wants to borrow them. Them's good readin', I'm tellin' ya! And yes, he is still in his PJ's. Some battles I'm just not up for fighting. Plus, what's the good of homeschooling if you can't do it in your PJ's?

Joseph, engrossed in his book. Henry and Ribsy, I think. Yep, PJ's there, too.

Time f0r a snack. These things are devilishly addicting.

What does Mosey do during lessons? Well, eat.

Play computer games. (You'll note he is the only one of the three who got dressed this morning)

Do a little reading himself. He's also reading Henry and Ribsy, I see.

Play with toys. Look, it's two Moseys!

And of course interrupt lessons about 174 times. It was hard for me to take a picture of that, though.

Joseph was thrilled with me taking pictures while he was working on multiplication.

A little handwriting.

We also did history, language, and spelling today. Finally, lessons are done! Here's the stack of books and workbooks that we went through today.

The modern day version of the slate. We have 5 of these and use all of them almost every day. Here is Brigham's spelling practice. My only gripe is that the pens dry out in about 15 seconds if you leave the lids off. Which my boys do constantly.

Mosey earned himself a 5 minute time-out in the hall closet. Here he is coming out. He doesn't look too bothered. Hmm, maybe I ought to think about another discipline method? You'll also notice that all of the blankets that used to be folded nicely in the shelves behind Mosey are now on the floor. They gotta make their time-outs comfy, I guess.

And here's what he got a time-out for. Gouging Brigham's poor little neck.

Lunchtime! Mosey appears a little repentant here. A very little.

Enjoying the lovely mid-November Austin weather in the backyard. It is now 2:00 PM and yes, he's still in his PJ's.

Time for piano practicing! We need a piano bench. You hear that, Santa?

3:00 finds us at piano lessons. Mosey finds interesting ways to entertain himself.

3:25. Almost Brigham's turn.

He spends the waiting time reading up on the Incredibles. He did finally get dressed for the day. I told them they *absolutely could not* show up at the piano teacher's house in their PJ's.

After piano, we run home and get ready for soccer. Practice starts at 5:00. Ben is the coach. As you can see by the car clock, it is 5:15 and he still has not made it to practice (I've got the practice gear in the van). Oh well, that's what you get when the coach is a parent volunteer, I guess.

Oops, I forgot we have snack today for soccer. As soon as Ben showed up, I had to run off to the grocery store to pick up some Capri Suns and Teddy Grahams.

Finally, 6:45 and we're home eating dinner.

Mister does our dishes for us. Who needs a dishwasher when you've got a dog? :-)

Quick Daddy-play-time after dinner.

The boys are supposed to be picking up toys. But instead they found their one-eye glasses. They made them this way on purpose. Because they created a one-eye-glasses-club, so they needed some one-eye glasses to go with it, of course!

Finally, bed time! One, two...

...and three. You'll again note that Joseph and Brigham elected to sleep in their clothes, while, once again, Mosey was the only one to put PJ's on. Sigh... At least they'll be ready to go as soon as they wake up?

But the night is just beginning for me. I get to make pies tonight! It was actually pretty fun, just me and my iPod and the mixer. Four chocolate-pumpkin-cheesecake pies. Actually, five, plus one regular pumpkin (had extra ingredients).

Then off to the computer to upload all my pictures and blog a little! Yes, my desk is an absolute disaster. It's not my fault, though, it's genetic. According to my mom, my dad has the messiest, most horrible desk in all the universe, so I get it from him. I'm going to clean it off tomorrow, I swear. Or maybe just pull the roll-top down.

And now it is 2:29 AM! G'night!