Thanksgiving 2015 Twice

We got to have double the fun for Thanksgiving this year!

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Agong and Ama came up from Brownsville and J and V came down from Austin.  V made another delicious fried turkey!  Seriously, the kids can't eat anything except fried turkey now...any other turkey never tastes as good!

We were all THANKFUL for--
Me: Yaocation and touring plans
B: a wonderful life (with turkey fryers)
Elina: essential oils (she was trying to trick us by saying this...even though we do use them at home)
Eli: trees
Evie: Yaya (J's nickname) and God and trees (J was impressed she made the list alongside God!)
Eulee: Yaya
Agong: my healthy body because it can still enjoy everything (Agong had a little bit of a health scare a few months ago, but now with meds and a diet change everything is better)
Ama: everything at the present
J: oodles of doodles (their new puppy is a goldendoodle named Ponyo!) and handy husbands
V:comfy shoes (that were essential for Disney and other trips) and Ponyo holding his pee!

And we were UNTHANKFUL for--
Me: lots of mosquitoes this year (due to all the rain we got)
B: squirrels (because they eat all the food we grow in our gardens)
Elina: traffic (she's learned that our drive to and from the new school can be pretty horrendous)
Eli: bad germs
Evie: muskeetols (mosquitoes)
Eulee: nothing
Agong: immigration laws (because my aunt's been having immigration problems...it's a long story!)
Ama: nothing
J: not enough vacation time!
V: bad weathermen and unexpected rain (he's been riding his scooter to work lately and getting rained on...which hasn't been fun)

We hung out all weekend and just relaxed...and the kids got to play with the cutest dog in the world--Ponyo!

Eulee even read him her favorite book--Boo! by Leslie Patricelli. Adorable!

 
The family even got to attend Eli's Just Boys Recital! Eli was so excited they could all be there to watch! Then the older kids went down to Brownsville with Agong and Ama...we joined them the following night.  We spent the rest of the break in Brownsville and McAllen and had a great time!

Of course we went to one my favorite zoos, the Gladys Porter Zoo.  It was a cloudy drizzly day so we were one of the only people there.  A lot of the animals were really active.  The tigers were roaming around and baby hippos were fighting.  It was a memorable trip to the zoo!

Then we spent a few days in McAllen.  The kids love playing with their cousin, Ary.

We also visited the National Butterfly Center.  We saw so many beautiful butterflies...it was lovely.

BUT all the mosquitoes were NOT lovely at all.  It was comical to see us all running down this one mosquito-infested trail, yelling and screaming.  Wow.  Nature.  Gotta love it.

On Thanksgiving Day we hung out and watched the parade and the dog show.  Ever since J and V got their new adorable goldendoodle, Ponyo, the kids have been obsessed with dogs.  So during the dog show, Elina took careful notes about the dogs that are potential pets when she grows up.  It was the cutest thing!

For dinner we actually did a hot pot.  We still had a little turkey, but the hot pot was the real star of the show!  Yum!

That night my sis A and I actually went out to do a little Black Friday shopping.  I really don't ever do this kind of shopping, but we thought we'd give it a try.  We didn't go right when things opened...and it was actually kind of enjoyable!  I think I'm starting to understand the culture a little, especially since we have kids now.  It's nice to go out and shop without kids for a few hours and get pretty good deals!  But since we're night owls, I think we'll just stick to the Thursday night shopping...no Friday morning madness for us!

We also did an early birthday cake for Eli since my parents were going to miss his real birthday.

We came back Saturday and actually came back WITHOUT Eulee.  Aunt A asked to keep her to keep Ary company, so we left her.  B seemed pretty sad about it.  He kept saying, "Do you think she'll be ok??"  It was very sweet.  I, on the other hand, already had my seat belt on and was ready to leave.  Ha!  I just knew that Eulee would be ok because she would have a little buddy to play with.  If we left her with just adults, I think she'd be more sad about us leaving.  Eulee stayed away for almost 5 extra days!  She had a blast though...she went to jumpy places, a Friends-giving, Little Gym, church, and even to see The Nutcracker!  What a great time...and what a nice aunt to take her!

Life was definitely quieter on our end.  There wasn't any chaos and no incessant chatter...there weren't any fits about things...it was really strange.  I still had to drive around the same amount, but I didn't have to MANAGE as much.  I loved that all the kids knew what to do and they would just go do it!  I loved that I didn't have to wipe any bums.  I loved running in and out of stores lightning fast!  Even so, we all missed Eulee very much.  We kept setting the table for 6.  All the kids commented on how quiet it was.  Elina said, "There's no one whining about playing on your phone."  Each kid said they missed Eulee at different times during the week.  It was really cute.

On the last day of break (Sunday) it was really cold out and we decided to just go to Six Flags as a family (minus Eulee).  We closed the place down and stayed until 9pm...on a school night!  The place was dead and it was THE BEST!  Eli rode the Iron Rattler for the first time and loved it!  We walked right onto every single ride.  After we rode, the employees told us we could just stay on and ride again if we wanted to.  So I rode the Roadrunner Epress about 6 times with Evie.  I started to feel a little sick at the end.  I also rode the tall swing ride called the Sky Screamer.  I almost started crying because I was so scared!  It was so high!  Evie kept saying, "Mommy, look at all those lights!!" and I squeezed her hand and said, "I can't open my eyes right now!!!"  I am such a wimp!  We rode everything we could that night and had the best time ever.  And, as B pointed out, had Eulee been there we would not have been able to do that at all.  So we were glad to get it out of our systems!

So we had a great time this Thanksgiving!  Lots of family...lots of food...shopping...and roller coasters....who could ask for more??  We are so thankful for all that we have and all that we are able to do!

Elina's First Literature Celebration

Elina and Eli's new school has been so wonderful so far.  It's definitely a change, but we have all adjusted well.  One big change is that there are no holiday celebrations at school.  Instead each grade level has celebrations after finishing big books or big units.  Originally I was a little bummed about all this (who doesn't like Winter parties??), but then I helped with our first 5th grade literature celebration and I had the best time!

Elina finished reading C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader and she absolutely loved it.  We celebrated with everything Dawn Treader.  One classroom was the craft room, which we called The Very End of the World.  Here the kids could put together a paper version of the Dawn Treader ship.

Another classroom was the game room called The Lone Islands, where we had lots of chess boards set up, since Reepicheep played chess.

The last classroom (where I worked) was the food room called Aslan's Table.  We had beef jerky, scones, Eton mess (delicious mixture of Cool Whip, sugar, crushed up meringue cookies, and strawberries!), and grapes.  We even had Drinkable Light (sparkling cider)!  Elina also made a stone knife for the table.

Another room parent and I also put together these cute favor bags for the kids.  We tried to put all Dawn-Treader-related items in...a feather, a little sword, some gold coins, star stickers.  The thing that took the most time was Eustace's gold cuff.  I wrapped gold duct tape around empty toilet paper rolls, then B cut the cuffs out.  We had to cut out 90 of these things...I swear B had a claw for a hand after all that work.  He is such a trooper!

And the other room parent had bruises on her fingers from cutting out the Dawn Treader craft.  That whole week we all stayed up late every night or woke up early in the morning to work on this celebration.

The other thing that took awhile were the origami white lilies that I made.  I wanted to make 90 so that each child could take one home, but I just didn't have enough time.  So I made as many as I could and we spread them out around in the hallways by the doors.

In the end it was all worth it!  The kids had so much fun and I loved meeting all of them.  Eli might be having a Greek celebration soon since 2nd grade is finishing up their Ancient Greece unit.  Exciting!  He already can't wait!

Mix and Match Halloween 2015

Elina and Eli are definitely into Pokemon these days.  They have binders with Pokemon cards to trade and play with...Pokemon t-shirts to wear...Pokemon stuffed animals to hug.  Even Evie and Eulee have their own set of cards...although they usually end up with duplicates the older kids don't want (not that they care).

Naturally, we had already been thinking about Halloween costumes over the summer and we all thought of being Pokemon characters.  This was perfect because then B and I could be Pokemon trainers or something.  Easy peasy, right?

Elina definitely wanted to be Squirtle, Eli claimed Charzard, and Eulee said she wanted to be Bulbasaur.  I figured Evie would claim Pikachu because she thinks he's so cute (we all do!)....nope!  One day she says, "I want to be Patrick."  Patrick??  Who is that??  She says, "You know...Patrick...the white dress that we have in the dress-ups."  Ohhhhhhhhh!  She wanted to be Cleopatra!  Get it?  CleoPATRICK!   Hahahah!  So cute!  Over the summer, the Cleopatra dress had become her go-to dress when she and Eulee played dress-up....so much so that the bottom was all torn and there were dirty marks all over the bottom.

Well, how do you put Cleopatra in with a group of Pokemon characters??  It just doesn't work, folks.  Another family costume idea down the drain!  We made it work though...I decided to be Pikachu with the other kids.  It was an easy costume because I wore a yellow tshirt and a Pikachu winter hat (figuring one of the kids can actually use it during the winter).  Then B decided he could pair up with our little Cleopatra and be a pharaoh, so he wore black and we got him a nice headress.

Of course, Cleopatra isn't Cleopatra unless she has tons of eye makeup on.  Evie was really into this.  We put some glitter green on her eyelids and used an eyeliner to draw some lines by her eyes.  She was in heaven!  Evie asked, "When can I wear this to school?"  Ha!  B went all out for Halloween and put on some eyeliner of his own!  He asked me, "Do you think I should put some on?"  I wasn't even thinking of it, but I put it on him and he decided to "fix it up" himself!  It turned out nicely!  We took a picture together and I told him that he looked prettier than I did!  Hahahaha!

In the end, we all looked pretty great together!  You know, in a Pokemon-goes-to-Egypt kind of way.

We were so excited about Halloween being on a Saturday this year!  We spent the day at AM's house...playing and relaxing.  We ate our usual yummy chili and cornbread....then played with dry ice.  Then we trick or treated for candy for a few hours before the rain hit.  Such a wonderful day! And the kids didn't hit the hay until almost 11pm!

And the weekend before was supposed to be our annual Halloween campout with AM and his family, but the heavy rain ruined our plans.  So we hung out all-day at our house doing our usual campout things--s'mores, carving pumpkins, decorating tshirts, eating outside.  This was the first time Eli actually carved his own pumpkin and he worked so hard at it.  We were so proud of him!   It was another great day spent with great friends!

Evie also had her Halloween parade at school.  She looked so cute!  There happened to be 3 Princess Leias in her class, too...wow!

We had such a fun Halloween this year!