so yeah, thanksgiving

I type this while staring at our Christmas tree, which seems wrong but hey, that's the way it goes. Better late than never.

We decided to stay home again for Thanksgiving since half of Henry's family had to work and we preferred not to make the drive to his parents' house. We had (most of) my family over and a good time was had by all. Henry cooked the turkey on the barbecue, rotisserie-style (yum); I made a bunch of gluten and dairy-free sides from scratch to complete the meal: mashed potatoes, butternut squash puree, dressing, gravy, green beans and caramelized onions, salad, and cranberries.



I think my favorite part of the night, besides the (yes, gluten-free) pear crisp, was my sister's pirate imitation:

finger dancing

Henry has taught all our kids from a young age to finger dance. What's finger dancing, you say? Well, watch and learn.



I posted a video earlier of Solana doing her version earlier. I'm still trying to see if we managed to catch Jonas doing it.

I find it kind of funny that both Solana and Jonas have gone through phases of being tyrants in the car with regard to what music they want to listen to and who is allowed to (or more often than not, *not* allowed to) sing and/or finger dance to said music. "YOU CAN'T FINGER DANCE!"

more jonas-isms

The last couple days when Jude has followed Jonas into the kids' room or the playroom, Jonas tries to get him out saying, "He's going to tear up the place!" I'm still not sure where he got that one.

Also, we went on a "night walk" with flashlights tonight after dinner, looking at the Christmas decorations in the neighborhood. Jonas surprised me by loudly saying, "Jumping jellybeans!" when he saw an impressive house. It sounded quite funny coming out of his mouth, even after the fiftieth time.

I think there was one more thing he said, but of course I can't remember it now. Such is life and my memory these days.

why having label-maker is not (necessarily) OCD

I loved my label-maker. Until the day the children did one too many things to it and it died on me. Henry got it for me our first Christmas together and I have now asked for a new one this year.

Why now, you ask, when your old one has been gone for at least a year? Because cranberry sauce should not have salt in it, that's why. And if you add about 1/8 cup of said substance to your cranberries in an attempt to overpower the maple flavor a bit, they taste god-awful. So you see, if that jar had been labeled properly as "salt," it would not have been mistaken for sugar and my cranberries would not have been ruined.

Luckily I bought 2 bags of cranberries so we could have extra for the freezer, so I remade the cranberries, forsaking the maple sugar for good-ole sugar, and we're good. But no extras sadly.

field trip

We went with Solana's class on a field trip Tuesday: taking the train down to Old Town, doing the tour guide thing, then having lunch and heading back home. It was exhausting, but the kids seemed to have a good time. I was amazed at how many of them had never been there before, considering its proximity to where we live.

Solana was one of the girls chosen to wear a mantilla and pretend to be living here back in the day (not hard when there were only 5 girls there from her class). She looks embarrassed in this picture, but she was really excited about it:



They went into the first schoolhouse in the county and sat at the old desks. Does Jonas fit here?



They even got to pet one of the resident burros. I got a picture of Solana, but Jonas' was blurry since I was staying close to him (the donkey was a bit skittish):



We ate lunch on the grass and the kids got to watch a short scene from Shakespeare being performed before we headed back to the station to narrowly avoid missing the train back home. I think the train ride was the highlight of the trip, at least for my boys:

before and after

The kitchen is done. Floor is done and I am loving the cork we decided on; it's so much softer than the concrete we've had for the last 2 months and dark enough that a crumb can fall without it shouting at me.


::taking sharpie to the concrete floor::

The appliances are freaking awesome. The dishwasher actually, you know, cleans the dishes. And? It's uber-quiet so we can watch the occasional movie and run the dishwasher. At the same time! The fridge is bigger than our last one which is nice, but sucks at the same time. I lost my top of the fridge storage so all my jars of beans, rice, popcorn, etc are currently residing on the countertop until I figure out where in our tiny kitchen I can fit them. And it sticks out into our narrow space more as well; we did get a side-by-side so when we open the doors, they don't take up as much room.


::solana's rendition of our family::

Best part? We have an ice maker and I can now have crushed ice whenever I want. The kids are loving that too.

All in all, I'm quite happy with our newish kitchen.


::new floor: you can also see all my jars in the background and our new fridge on the right::

grandma update

Surgery went well today, according to my sister and Henry's brother. The doctor was able to remove a good portion of the left side of the tumor. Now here's to hoping she recovers well and comes off the drugs okay.

0 for 2

My score for gluten-free cooking/baking tonight. Argh.

First I made carrot cupcakes. The recipe was given to me and I made them for Solana's 3rd birthday party; I remember them being good. Made them at some point a couple years ago and they tasted funny; I chalked it up to not mixing the baking powder in well enough as they had this funny taste. Made them again tonight, forgetting about prior funny taste experience, and the same thing happened. This time I made them with gluten-free flour, but I think the problem ultimately is the recipe there. Not sure why they would have tasted good the first time though. . .

Dinner was chicken pot "pie." Filling was premade/frozen from last time I made it. I added potatoes and made the gluten-free bread topping; it came out really gummy and not so good. Sigh.

I give up. For now.

where'd that wagon go?

Because I certainly fell off it; the NaBloPoMo wagon, that is. I got thrown off when Jude pulled an all-nighter last Wednesday. I ended up getting a grand total of about 4 hours sleep, half of that on the couch with him cradled in my arms. So Thursday night found me falling asleep with him at bedtime rather than blogging. Ditto Friday night.

Last night we didn't get home from visiting my grandma and then hanging out with Henry's family (and shopping) until late. In fact I think it was technically already today, so no blog post again.

It's been busy around here though. Grandma had her pre-surgery procedure today and Henry's brother called to say it went fine. It wasn't an angiogram as she had told me originally, but something else I cannot recall the name of. Basically they went in and cut off the blood supply to one of the 2 vessels leading to her brain. This should help tomorrow during the surgery to remove (hopefully most of) the tumor causing all the problems.

Solana went to her first slumber party on Friday night. She went back and forth on staying the night and ultimately decided to do it. We made sure she knew she could call us anytime and Henry would come get her of she needed. She ended up staying all night and looked really happy when we picked her up. The girls got a grand total of about 7 hours sleep, but it worked out well since we had a 2-hour car ride ahead of us; she actually napped for a bit on the way!

So yeah, big milestone there: Solana's first night away from her family (no, she had never even slept over at grandma's yet). I'm glad we waited until she was ready since it went so well.