Holidays with family

We had a wonderful visit from Mom and Dad this past week for Thanksgiving. While I love my little family, an extra dimension is added when other family members are included in holiday celebrations. That is one of the things we miss the most about living so far away from the rest of the relatives - Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc., are all a little bit more fun when you have the traditions of gathering with family.

The first half of their visit had beautiful weather. A little chilly, but nice and sunny so we took advantage of it and everyone went for a walk in the park.


We always need to stop by the little pond to see what animals are out and about that day. Canadian geese (of course) in the background. I think the ducks were out too.


Grandad is the BEST at enticing reluctant hikers into coming along. Alex as usual wanted to stay home. So Grandad pointed out that there is probably some hidden pirate treasure in our park. Sure enough around some select large trees Alex was able to find aluminum foil wrapped coins under the leaves. Sweet Grace even got into the spirit of things by hiding some of her own money for Alex to find once Grandad ran out.


And Gramma got the kids to gather pretty Fall leaves from the trail, which also kept them nice and busy on the hike.


Grace wanted me to take this as proof that she truly is a tree hugger.


And after the hike in that good crisp air even my kids were getting along with each other.


As for the Thanksgiving meal, we certainly hold true to being very laid-back and kid-friendly in our approach.

Grace made her annual decoration of tracing our hands on paper and having us name five things we are thankful for. She then wrote one thing on each finger of the hand and illustrated it. These are Grace and Alex's hands. Don't know if you can see when you enlarge it, but on Alex's thumb he is thankful for the solar system.


Everyone got Thanksgiving hats to wear during the meal. The hands on these are actually turkeys - there is a tiny face drawn on the thumb of each.


Everyone wore them - even Gramma and Grandad.


Grace also made the centerpiece for the table out of our Beanie Baby turkeys and lots of nature found on our walk the day before.


Alex checks out how his hand compares to the one on Grandad's hat.

As always even though it was a nice long visit, it still didn't seem long enough. So just know, grandparents, that you are welcome back again any time!

Look what's in my yard

I know, not real impressive to show leaves when it is Fall. But when you lived your whole life in Texas where there is pretty much one color of Fall leaves (brown, or various shades thereof) it's easy to get excited about the little things. I should have put some perspective in the picture because the yellow ones are almost as big as your hand.

I've decided raking leaves is not that bad of a chore. Due to our economic situation this year, I chose to rake them myself vs using the lawn service. And really, it's a fairly enjoyable bit of light exercise. The leaves themselves aren't heavy. The weather is usually nice and cool. The town comes and picks your leaves up a couple times during the season, so all you have to do is haul them out to the street and make a big pile in front of your house (I'm sure infuriating parents that we have at least one less parking spot in front of my house for school pickup). We had a huge wind storm yesterday - gusts were expected to be up to 45-50 mph - so all those big yellow leaves in the picture above finally fell out of the tree. I had first raked a week or so ago, and I added what I could this morning to the pile out front, cursing my luck that the town trucks came by just about in the middle of my hauling them out. We still have a small pile out back, plus some more still to fall, so if the town doesn't do another pickup we can at least mulch the flower beds with them.


The other thing in my yard that makes raking the leaves NOT always a pleasurable chore. Makes me see I need to get out a little more often with the pooper scooper. But how can you get mad at this cute face?