Thanksgiving 2010

So I've been meaning to post about our Thanksgiving ever since Thanksgiving....over 3 weeks ago. I know....I'm totally awesome and on top of it ALL! I'm telling you...this 4th kid really threw me for a loop! Anyway. We decided to do something very different this Thanksgiving. Daniel had the whole weekend off (a new novelty), and we didn't have any family coming in town, so we recruited our friends (Jason and Rachel and their 2 little boys) to go out to eat with us for Thanksgiving dinner. I tell you what...it was a-maz-ing. I didn't slave in a kitchen all morning long for a 20 minute meal that never tastes as good when you are the one doing all the work. In fact, Jason and Rachel came over in the late morning; the weather was fabulous and the kids spent the day outside. We made up a delicious breakfast (Jason made egg nog crepes...yummmm), then Rachel and I browsed the Black Friday ads until it was time to pack up the kids and head to dinner at 4pm. Now, the food was descent....I make better...BUT I didn't have to MAKE it and CLEAN it up. So, for $65, I was able to stay Thankful and Happy on Thanksgiving. Totally worth it.

We came back home after dinner, and Daniel and Jason started a fire in the backyard so we could make s'mores, but then it started to rain and that was the end of that. Rachel went home to put her boys to bed....I got my kids headed to bed, and then Rach and I went out to do some serious Black Friday shopping. We stayed out all night. We spent the majority of the night in Wal-Mart...laying on the floor in the shoe section reading our books while we waited in line for $89 Nintendo DS Lite's. We were totally crazy and had a great time.

The rest of the weekend we just kind of hung out. I took Alicia and Adelaide to go see "Tangled" (good flick) on Friday afternoon. On Saturday, Daniel took the kids out to get a Christmas tree, and I put up all the Christmas decorations. I was so impressed with myself to have my house ready for Christmas 2 days after Thanksgiving (which totally wouldn't have happened if I was the one cooking Thanksgiving dinner).

Having Daniel home all weekend was great. We are loving his fellowship schedule of no nights and no weekends. He often works long hours, but having him home every night and on weekends and holiday weekends is so nice. I even asked him to build me a piece of furniture and he had it done in no time at all! Adelaide has a ridiculous amount of dress-ups that my mom has gotten for her. They were starting to take over her clothes closet, and it would drive me crazy when she'd haul them all to and from the playroom because they were never put away nicely creating a disaster in her closet that I would end up cleaning. So, I started looking online for a dress-up closet to put in the playroom. They were all sitting around $200, and were (in Daniel's words) "cheap furniture." So late Friday night he took Tristan with him to Home Depot for supplies, and got up early Saturday morning to start building. By 9am, the closet was constructed. Then it was a few more trips to Home Depot to get the right color for the finish. I was so impressed!!! I hope for many more of these productive, easy, and relaxed Thanksgivings!!!!