TreasuresInTerraCotta

Happy Thanksgiving! This is my favorite day of the year. I love that it is (still) all about family and friends and food and gratefulness. Somehow it has remained largely un-commercialized and uncomplicated, apart perhaps from the food. To me, it signals the real start of the Christmas season…unlike Halloween or Columbus Day or the 4th of July, as the retailers want us to believe. And today is the first day in over a week that my little one is back to his happy and (mostly) healthy self. So it’s a great day. Today we’re headed to my cousin’s farm where we’ll gather with about 20 or so other people to celebrate this Thanksgiving day. I have an 87 year old grandma who will be there along with a handful of aunts and uncles and a whole bunch of cousins and second cousins. There may be a few friends and co-workers or neighbors thrown in as well. We didn’t have any new babies this year, so my Andrew will be the youngest at 13 months. But my cousin has a new fiancée this year, so we’...

Our house is coming along nicely. It looks like a real house again. As if we could almost live there! But there are a million details to finish up in the next few weeks. Thankfully I am not responsible for most of them. Here are a few pictures to give you an update. I told the neighbor that the port-o-potty would be removed from the front of our house VERY SOON!! From the living room into the newly opened kitchen. Living room looking into new bedroom toward the front of the house. The new bedroom. That's a closet on the right and there is also a bathroom on the right. I can't wait for it to be finished...and then we'll have an open house! We are so excited.

I want my own Dilly Bar. Mommy shared, but that's not the same. I want to HOLD it. Notice that I am content, but that I did not give mommy any smiles!

We like Halloween costume themes. We've been barn yard animals and The Flintstones . This year my kids and my sister's kids went as the crew from The Wizard of Oz. Despite our great ideas and good costumes we have surprisingly few good pictures to show for it. This year I had a Revelation: Have a separate dress-up day for pictures. Here's my reasoning: -You get better pictures with natural, outdoor lighting. -You get better pictures when kids are most happy and awake. -You get better pictures when you are not trying to make dinner, find costume parts, answer the door for trick-or- treaters , entertain guests, etc. So, at least for me, Halloween pictures taken at 6:00 on October 31 don't inspire awe. Never-the-less here's what we got this year! (Thanks to Grandpa!) And next year we'll institute Dress-Up Day For Pictures.