Happy Thanksgiving!

 I am one of the leaders of Leila's GEMS group at church.  We tie dyed heart t-shirts to wear while making, serving, and cleaning up a Wednesday night supper.

Me: does that sound ok?
Leila: (mumble)
Me: did you say ok?
Leila runs out of the room.
20 seconds later I get this sticky note stuck to my arm. I am not ready for her to be a teenager.

 We went walking downtown and saw that they had already started decorating for Christmas.

 After the first snow of the year, the girls needed hot chocolate with marshmallows.

 Henry decided marshmallows go in hot cider too.

 On the day before thanksgiving, all of the kids had off from school so I got to go with nana and papa and all 8 kids to Russ' and Crazy Bounce.

 Zoe wasn't wearing socks, so she had to wait for papa to go home and grab some.

 Henry got scared at the top of the tiger slide so Reid helped bring him back down.

 Papa enjoyed knocking all the kids over by leaning on the sides.

 There were a few ball fights too.

 Stella found a soccer teammate - Ayvah - to play with.

 They were all in a hurry to go down the slide and did not bother to wait for others to be done.

 At the end Greta got really brave and kept jumping at the top and I managed to catch a mid-air bounce.

 We finished off the day before thanksgiving with an emergency call - the cleaning lady had noticed water pouring into Dolores' desk - she called her boss, who called Jer, and made it sound like a burst pipe was flooding the whole building - so we loaded up in the van, I dropped Jer at work, then left the kids at my parents and went back to help.  It turned out to be a slow leak that could be contained with a bucket, but stressfully exciting all the same.

 Thanksgiving day we had my parents and sisters and their families over.  I had my camera on food mode but didn't notice, so the pictures turned out weird.

 Kids wrestling before lunch.

 After lunch Leila had a fun turkey craft for all of the kids.

Bingo!

Kid Quotes:

Stella: Mama, the truth is, I know the surprise, but I'm not going to tell you because my whispers are too loud.

Henry: Me and Allie were working on our papers together.
Stella: How did you know her name?
Henry: She told it to me.
Me: Did you tell her your name?
Henry: No. I couldn't, because I was focusing.
Me: On your paper?
Henry: Yes. Only an octopus, because they have lots of arms, could do both.
#notanoctopusmultitasker

So important that it could not wait until I was out of the shower...
Stella: Mom, I can't find my Easter bucket.
#kidpriorities

Potty training advice from Henry: That's ok if you have accidents, because grown ups can clean them up. Right mom?

Budding Electrician

I decided to change out the light fixture in the bathroom because a while back a CFL bulb was in it and sparked and melted, which blew out one of the lights in the fixture itself.  Henry was my assistant this morning and it was a good thing that Jer has a headlamp for running, or I would not have been able to see because his flashlight work is spotty at best.  He took 3 pictures of me working on the light - 2 of them were of the ceiling, so I am lucky we got one!

I was explaining our morning project to Henry and started to talk about electricity because we were going to shut it off.  I mentioned how the power plant makes electricity and then it comes into the house through wires and that lamps and other things run on electricity.  He stops me and says, "Mom, but where's the power bush?"  At which point I was very confused, until I remembered that I had said power plant - and apparently plant turned into bush in his head. :)

Happy Halloween!

 Nana and Papa came by to check out their costumes and give them a treat.

 Leila the fairy

 Henry the monkey

 Stella the cowgirl

 Then we did our pumpkins with potato heads again.

 Henry changed his mind at the last minute and decided to be a skeleton instead.

Here they are with their haul - Stella has half a hershey bar in each hand.