Miss Giggles

Yep, I can't get enough of your sweetness. I love how you say prayers and how you say Jesus. I am sure that brings a big smile to your Heavenly Father's face. I love how you want water aka daughter and crackers constantly and will go get them for yourself whenever possible. I love you laughter that can be heard more frequently than not. I love your pleas to sleep in Mia's bed and how you let us know when daddy is at work. I love your excitement over airplanes and how you pretend fly airplanes throughout the house. I love how you love Lammies and pray it will last as long as you need it. I love all your hugs and cuddles and kisses. I love your crazy hair and precious smile. I love you, girl.

Thanksgiving

Wonderful Times:

#1
Seeing the kids faces as we prepared the Turkey. Mia was much smarter than me. I assumed that the neck bag in the chest cavity was the extent of the giblets because we got such a small turkey and the rest of the garbage just didn't make it. Wrong! Oh well, I am sure that isn't the first time the bag was left in for the cooking. The bird was bagged and cooked upside down for a time. Then, cut from the plastic restraint and flipped upright and basted for the remaining time. This made for great drippings and a new tradition of gravy making in this house.



#2
We finally went on a family "Turkey Trot" after many years of talking about it. Right before we were going to eat, Fernando announced the race. It almost fell through when a massive spider was spotted on the driveway. My kids and spiders (especially Talia) equals rapt attention. They hovered over the spider trying to find all the parts we had learned about a few days before. I even had to take a closer look to see all the eyes. I was also the one who screamed the loudest when the spider decided to give me a closer look. We lined up finally and took off around the block. We made it with only a few complaints and warnings of possible death by running from the kids.


#3
Our annual "Turkey Chase" was silly like usual. Tiago snagged the most feathers with Fernando coming in at a close second. Usually, we have just colored our best rendition of a feather. This year and I think from now on, Mia suggested we color things we love and are thankful for.
Tiago drew a crane, dump truck, train, and bulldozer.

Talia got apples and a Lamb picture.

Mia had a Tinkerbell, candy cane, and a flower.



Best of all. . .Fernando was wake and with us for at least 4 hours. It was nice to have him home. Happy Thanksgiving!

Around the World in 25 Days

Hunting for interesting activities for each holiday has become a little more tricky since we moved from the heart of constant cultural exposure aka the DC area. We do have a few fun events here like the Sea World wonders, Lights on the Riverwalk, Bass Pro Shop with all its free fun including the free Santa picture!, and this weekend's Handel Messiah concert just to name a few.

Today while reading the Friend Magazine (a magazine the Church of Jesus Christ publishes for young children), I stumbled upon a working advent calendar of sorts. It was called "Christmas Around the World". As we read each one, I realized that the activities mentioned would be fun to do as a family and kind of culturally uplifting. I have already tweaked some of the ideas to fit our circumstances. For example, day 6 tells us that Australians will go to the beach and sing carols. We do have beaches not too far from our house, but the Sabbath day isn't a day for us to make a day trip to the beach. So, instead, we switched the 5 day's activities from Germany and the candy left in the shoe (ok the candy will be substituted with a clementine orange) to allow us either a day trip to the beach with caroling or heading to Sea World on Saturday to listen to all the carols while we play in the artificial beach fronts.

You should check it out. There are some amazing things to do. I am sure thankful for all the research the people put into the calendar so I could have a no brainer Christmas time.

PS Enjoy browsing around on the website. There are a lot of great things even for those who are not of our faith. My kids love looking at this site on Sundays to help keep their thoughts focused on the One who brought the First Real Gift of Christmas. If you want, there are pictures that can be cut out and place on each day to remind you of what you did. I think I will just blog about it.