Thanksgiving Plans

One of my friends put this on our MOMYS board & I decided to share it since it made me laugh!

Dear Family & Friends, I know that you were eager to accept our family's invitation to Thanksgiving dinner when you found out that the famous Martha Stewart would be joining us. However, due to scheduling conflicts beyond her control, Ms. Stewart finds that she is unable to grace our table this year. With that in mind, there will be a few minor changes regarding the meal and decor, as outlined below. Please be aware of them, and adjust your appetite and dress appropriately.

Thank you

1) Our driveway will not be lined with homemade, paper bag luminaries. After several trial runs and two visits from the fire department, it was decided that, no matter how cleverly done, rows of flaming lunch sacks do not have the desired welcoming effect.

2) Once inside, please note that the entry space will not be decorated with swags of Indian corn and fall foliage. Instead, we included our dog in decorating by having him track in colorful autumn leaves from the back yard. The mud was his idea.

3) The dining table will not be covered with expensive linens, fancy china, or crystal goblets. If possible, we will use dishes that match and everyone will get a fork. Since this is Thanksgiving, we will refrain from using the paper SpongeBob dinner plates, the leftover Halloween napkins, and our plastic cup collection.

4) Our centerpiece will not be a tower of fresh fruit and flowers. Instead we will be proudly displaying a hedgehog-like decoration hand-crafted from the finest construction paper and pine cones. The artist assures me it is a turkey, albeit one without wings, legs, or a beak.

5) We will be dining somewhat later than planned. However, our daughter will entertain you while you wait. I'm sure she will be happy to share every choice comment her mother made regarding Thanksgiving, pilgrims, stuffing choices, the turkey hotline, and, especially, her husband. Please remember that most of these comments were made at 7:00AM upon discovering that said husband had only remembered to pull the turkey from the freezer at 6:00 AM, and that the thing was still hard enough to cut diamonds.

6) As an accompaniment to our daughter's recital of these events, I will play a recording of Native American tribal drumming. Curiously, the tribal drumming sounds a great deal like a frozen turkey in a clothes dryer, but that only enhances the holiday appropriateness. If our daughter should mention that we don't own a recording of Native American tribal drumming, ignore her. She's only nine; what does she know?

7) A dainty silver bell will not be rung to announce the start of our feast. We have chosen to keep our traditional method of assembling when the smoke alarm goes off.

8 ) There will be no formal seating arrangement. When the smoke alarm sounds, please gather around the table and sit where you like. In the spirit of harmony, we will ask all the children to sit at a separate table. In a separate room. Next door. And I would like to take this opportunity to remind our younger diners that "passing the rolls" is neither a football play nor an excuse to bean your cousin in the head with bread.

9) The turkey will not be carved at the table. I know you have seen the Norman Rockwell image of one person carving a turkey in front of a crowd of appreciative onlookers. Such a scene may occur somewhere in America , but it won't be happening at our dinner table. For safety reasons, the turkey will be carved in the kitchen at a private ceremony. I stress "private", meaning Do not, under any circumstances, enter the kitchen to laugh at me. Do not send small, unsuspecting children, or older, helpful grandparents into the kitchen to check on my progress. I have a very large, very sharp knife. The turkey is unarmed. It stands to reason that I will eventually win the battle. When I do, we will eat.

10) For the duration of the meal, we will refer to the gravy by its lesser-known name: Kraft Cheese Sauce. If a young diner questions you regarding the origins or makeup of the Kraft Cheese Sauce, smile kindly and say that you know the answer, but it's a secret that can't be revealed to them until they are 18.

11) Instead of offering a choice among 12 different scrumptious desserts, we will be serving the traditional pumpkin pie, garnished with whipped cream and dog tongue marks. You still have a choice: take it or leave it.


That concludes our list of alterations. Again, I apologize that Martha will not be joining us this year. Come to think of it, she probably won't come next year, either.

Celeste is 1!

When your big sister & brother have birthdays within 2 weeks of your first birthday you know exactly how to open a present even though it's your first time! She was excited but they are never as excited as their siblings!

Vacation in Wisconsin Dells

We went to the Wisconsin Dells for a 5 day, much needed vacation. We originally went to celebrate the 3 birthdays in 2 weeks that we have. The younger 3 kids all deserved to have a fun birthday so we bid on a vacation on Ebay & won. I totally recommend it! We saved a lot of money & it was so great! We stayed at the Wilderness Resort which gave us access to 3 indoor water parks & many more ammenities that we didn't take advantage of. Our favorite park was what we called The Dome. A huge clear dome covered a wave pool that gave you the feeling of being in a warm tropical place instead of a cold, windy northern state.  It even had bananas growing on the trees inside. Corbin was recovering from hernia surgery & a cold so he spent most of his time sleeping in a chair by the pool but Celeste is just like Daddy...Total Waterbug! Not afraid one bit to get wet or go underwater. Sage loved the water but didn't want to trek up the 3 story stairs to get on the water slides (he's leery of high places & the dark tunnels of the slides). Brody & Julia, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of the slides & Jeremy was glad to accomodate their eagerness.

I loved to watch & go on the slides once or twice a day but it was fun for me to just sit. I tried to relax knowing that when we got back, I'd be in for a long road of painting & the impossible job of keeping our house clean for possible buyers. You see, we found an acreage! We've been looking for 3 years & we finally found The One! It's close to Ames, has a great house, the land has been taken care of & we are so excited. It's been my dream since I was a little girl to live on a farm & now my dream will hopefully come true in May! (I even wrote a speech in the 8th grade about how I wanted to be the wife of a pig farmer when I grew up!) My kids are excited about the animals we can have & I am ecstatic, too. Now comes the waiting game & continuous prayer for a buyer for our home!

I need to get the pictures on but they're on the other computer, so maybe tomorrow I'll remember to logon & upload those.  We'll see if I can get my phone pictures on here right now.

Julia turned 6 while I was busy painting walls when we got back home. Corbin just turned 3 on Monday & Celeste will be 1 on Saturday! For some reason, all this seems fine with me right now but the hard one for me to swallow was realizing, after dropping Julia off at gymnastics this afternoon, that Brody will be 8 at Christmas! That seems just as impossible as Sage turning 10 in June! Maybe because I didn't think Brody would live this long with his pentiant for danger but mostly because 8 feels like a turning point. Don't you think? No more excuses, he's responsible for so much. I have such a short time left with them & I intend to make it count!

And in order to do that, I better hit the hay. Good night!