Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

This blog is mostly for mom, whose house we are ransacking...but Happy Thanksgiving to you all!




Although our list only included up to the grandparents in this video, we wish ALL of our family Happy Thanksgiving and are thinking of all of you!!!

Boots is harassed but still alive.

Great Grandpa gets a big hug after a big meal!

Visiting Great Grandma. She ate half a slice of pumpkin pie and 2 small hershey bars! We sang, laughed, played, and talked. It was a great visit!

Bye-bye.

Whoa!

Whoa and Wow are Alden's new words of the week. He says Whoa when he almost falls or something does fall. Wow is saved for amazing feats of prowess like when he smears lovely snot all over mommy's face. I was telling Wally about the snot from Alden and said, "I had snot all over me." Rhianwen piped up, "Oh, well, you are supposed to blow your nose."

A "wow" moment. Notice Aldi has finally taken to his paci after 15 months of hating it. Now, it's almost become his security object. He's getting his molars, and I feel sorry for him, so I'm letting him have it for now.

"S-code." (It's cold...another new phrase from Alden).

With all the rain from Ida and snot from Alden, we were stuck at home for days. I decided to try to make our own Wampanoag costumes using boys' t-shirts, tea and cinnamon as the dye, and beads on the tassels. They came out great, and Rhianwen and Alden love them! They are so easy to wear too, and even look good when we go out in public. They also look good for either a boy or girl. You can see more pics on our renovation blog. We used these during our Thanksgiving program at the nursing home, and they were a big hit. Now, of course, daddy had to out-do mommy again (I'm just trying to give him a hard time :)), and when he saw those clothes and necklaces, he decided to bring in a couple of trees to make a tee-pee. Alden had a blast trying to pull it down.

Alden is a pro at falling asleep before nap on Saturdays. Here he is on the rocking horse snoozing away during the Clemson game. What a fan.

Today was a hard day. A lot of fussing in the morning from both of them, we got out to the airport to play in the sand and see planes take off, but then all Alden wanted to do was stomp all the other kids' sand-creations (understandable, yes...acceptable, no), then I managed to dry 2 crayons with a load of clothes while Alden decorated our couch with pen and a green highlighter. SIGH. It's a hard week anyway, but today was the clincher. I feel like sometimes I've lost my own identity in all of this mothering stuff.

Nonsense

Rhianwen is enamored with the movie Mary Poppins right now. She's constantly pretending to be Bert (the chimney sweep) and wears her corduroy hat nearly all day long. 2 words she's picked up from the movie are: Nonsense! and Certainly! also, she insists that Michael said "Norbert!" somewhere in the movie and she goes around calling it out. She also calls the Apostle's Creed the Preeds Croostle. This reminds me of my mom who often did such things including "going to the chicken to buy a store".

Such a cute little gymnast. She was so excited to get a leotard it almost replaced the corduroy hat!

Despite the time change and early darkness, we've been enjoying stomping through leaves and sliding into big piles. Rhianwen also likes to pretend to sew them together, which is what she's doing here. I asked her if she thought leaves made good clothes, and she said, "NO!". I guess she's learned something from devotions!

Look mom, we match!

Oh no. Mommy and daddy are definitely NOT ready for this. We were just saying how we don't want another baby until we have at least one of our current ones completely potty trained (ie. capable of successfully initiating and completing the entire process independently every time). This is more than likely a pie-in-the-sky ideal. Alden has already pooped in the toilet at this point per his request, and he's not even 16months old yet!

After putting the lid on for the last time, he says, "Done." He's so confident and happy with the results. I love it.

All this learning tires him out! Don't you just love his jammies?

Be praying for us here as parents. Rhianwen has hit yet another difficult stage. She's been very demanding, argumentative, disrespectful, and refuses to listen even if what I'm saying is what she wants to hear! Many days all I want to do is cry and run away. But I know that God is using this to show her her need for Jesus, to show me my need for Jesus, and to remind me that He controls the outcome in every situation. What He asks of me is to trust and obey in a way that loves God over my own life. But I lack wisdom and patience in most situations. Nothing I try seems to help.