thanksgiving

thanksgiving was a very busy time for us over here.

it all started the week before thanksgiving.
meet squanto (the little one) and chief happy sun.

they were all good until squanto tried to mess with chief happy sun's noodle necklace.

after the intratribal squabble (in which squanto learned to keep his paws off of the noodles), chief happy sun showed off all of the feathers that he earned and his vest.


then we packed up and headed to jackson to meet the rest of the henson tribe. these two rested up on the way there...


i should have done the same.

never fear, though, because french toast loaded with powdered sugar will get your engine going in the morning!


and then you can spend the rest of your time there going in and out the back door recruiting somebody to come outside with you...


and dance with your shadow...


take a walk in the leaves...


jump in the bounce house...


go on a bear hunt...


ride in the coupe...


play football...


play golf...


or just sit around and look cute!


if the outdoors got tiring, you could always come in and play with blocks...if you could get them away from alexandra.


or play with reed...


or get some love from leigh...she's always willing to dole out the hugs.


or you could listen to the musical stylings from wes...


and sara beth...


and then you'd need an aspirin or 4.

or you could make a giant cookie man who affectionately got the name, bob.


and look 'a here! there's a picture of adults for the first time in i don't know when!


after all the excitement, new christmas pjs topped it off!


that was just too much. reed is exhausted.

and i am, too!! do i get to curl up for my long winter nap before or after christmas??

christmas came early for mama,

and although i have no idea what i am doing (yet)...

i love my new camera!!

new spot at the table

no food yet, but the little man enjoys being up off the floor and watching the rest of us eat/squish food on our plates!

if only he could keep his tray (and the floor underneath) that clean forever...

roo

for some reason, william came up with his own nickname for reed, and now he and wes both refer to their little brother as....roo.

does he look like a roo??


i guess it doesn't matter because he cracks up and smiles at them when they get in his face cooing, "hey, roo!" or "whatcha doin', roo roo?" so, i'm afraid it's going to stick!! which isn't all that bad because it's quite obvious that they love the little guy.


and, i think the feeling is mutual.

so, roo it is.

at least until he gets big enough to punch/bite somebody and stand up for himself!

it's a bird, it's a plane, it's...

a whole lot of pint-sized super heroes!!

last weekend, william's buddy, charlie, turned 4. he had his party at GO and requested that everyone come decked out as their favorite super hero. you've never seen so many batmans, supermans, and spidermans in one place! they jumped, ran, slid, and honed all of their super hero skills until they were a bunch of sweaty batmans, supermans and spidermans!


wes had no problem keeping up with super heroes that were twice his size!


i did manage to get the birthday boy to stop for a second to get a picture...


and that picture makes me so sad! when did they grow up??


happy birthday, charlie-man!!

we will strive to raise him up in the nurture and admonition of the lord...with only a bribe or two, here and there!

last weekend, we celebrated reed's baptism with a few friends and family. the day after halloween and a seasonal time change may not have been the best time to plan it, but it all worked out! this little guy looked as cute as all the other grandkids who have worn this gown!

(this has nothing to do with this post, but don't you just love the wrist fat?!? neither of my other two ever had a fat roll, and i'm loving that reed has rolls!)

we tried to take some family pictures before church, but you see how well that worked out!

i have decided that i'm not going to waste my time trying to take christmas card pictures. i'm just going to take one picture. the caption will read "i tried. merry christmas." anybody with 3 kids will understand or at least feel sorry for me!!

anyway when wes was baptised, william ran laps around chase and the preacher, pulled on the gown, was just generally loud, and ended up eating animal crackers on the pew with the grandparents. we were determined not to make a scene this go around!

meet collins...


a few weeks before reed's baptism, collins' little brother, griffin, was baptised. i made william stand up in the pew and watch carefully. not the baby, not the preacher...i made him focus on collins. "see how still he is being? see how quiet collins is? look how good collins is being." etc, etc, etc. and then we played a game. it was called the "can i be as good as collins?" game. i told william that if he could be as still and as quiet during reed's baptism as collins was during griffin's baptism that he could have a piece of gum. this is a big deal to him because i don't let him chew gum in church. i did until he needed to spit it out one day and i had nowhere to put it. plus, he has a tendency to smack and see how far he can pull it out of his mouth. i guess gum playing is better than the 2 bright, orange tic-tac-toe boards that he drew in the hymnal, but that's a different story! anyway....william didn't budge during the whole thing. he put his hands in his pockets and stared straight ahead. i don't even think he looked up when reed was baptised! i held wes the whole time and promised him a peppermint if he could be quiet. other than the one "i want my peppermint" outburst, he was good! (hey...i'm not above a bribe!)

of course, we can't get out of the day without incident because reed decided at the last second to blow out his diaper! he tried to ruin the family heirloom he was wearing, but i think it is in good shape for the next grandkid or great-grandkid! we hope.

after church, we made our way to the country club for lunch. we had our own room, so once everyone had pigged out and eaten way too many desserts, the little people found a place on the floor with some crayons and were entertained for a bit...


...until they made their way outside with paper airplanes.


despite the fact that everyone was short on sleep and it was way past naptime, there were no meltdowns. everyone played nicely, and we even got one pic of the henson kids where everyone is at least looking in the same direction.

maybe i'll just use that picture as my christmas card. the two cute girls in the middle of my boys will just be a bonus!

this is what the stomach bug looks like...

somebody shoot me.