It's a Boys World: Thanksgiving Week

{Woo hoo! Well, I've found a solution to my previous problem (I'm a regular MacGyver!) but it is no doubt just a temporary band-aid. Something new and different may have to happen with the ol' blog here pretty soon. Oh golly, just add it to the "to do" list!} But we'll take it while we can....moving along....

For us, the Thanksgiving season kicked off immediately after Halloween, when we began recording our blessings, one by one, as a family. Just like last year, we celebrated our thanks by writing down on a paper leaf what we are thankful for. This year, though, we didn't create a thankful tree, but rather a thankful garland (the new board and batten on my kitchen wall is serving it's purpose quite nicely).

Each night at dinner, we recorded what we were most thankful for that day. It was pretty cute as Reed was the one that kept us on track about it, asking each night "What are you thankful for, Mommy? What are you thankful for, Dad?" We can tell how much school has come to mean to Drew, as each night he would name a different classmate that he was thankful for. And Reed. Oh Reed. He's just a comedian, but also very smart. He remembers the little things (grapes, trees, cereal) along with what we would consider more notable (his church, his family, and a few friends thrown in for good measure). And, of course, we do have so much to be thankful for. An early resolution, perhaps: to remember our blessings. To name them. To give thanks to God. Every day.

Among those blessings are our families, of course. Traveling for Thanksgiving is going to be of significant difficulty for us, now that we are 10 and 12 hours away from our hometowns and Drew is in school. Driving such a distance in the span of a four-day weekend doesn't exactly thrill us, especially when we will be taking more time in just one short month to make the rounds at Christmas. So, it was decided that we'd stay put. And lucky us, much like in 2010, my parents were able to schedule a trip to our home to celebrate Thanksgiving here!

And so, our week was full, but pretty low-key. Mom and Dad arrived on Sunday night and were here until Friday morning. Drew had school and Brad worked Monday through Wednesday, so that left Reed here with my parents and me during the bulk of the day. We did a few preparations for Thursday's meal, and ran a few errands, but other than that, Reed has his pick of play buddies and play play play we did!

Here was our week, in photos:

Game play was Reed's activity of choice this week, it seemed. He learned how to play a few new ones, and kept Grammy and Papa busy!

Drew had limited time with his grandparents, so that amped up the excitement for the air hockey tournament he and Papa had! (Just ignore those moving boxes, please. We're not talking about that. Thank you.)

And, as no major holiday or vacation is complete without it, we made our traditional trip to the Urgent Care. Reed woke on Sunday morning with a slight cough that intensified throughout the week. A lot of coughing, a lot of snot, a lot of sleepless nights on the couch for him and me, that by Wednesday, enough was enough. So, off to the UC to be diagnosed with an ear infection and given instructions on how to ease the drainage and coughing. He also woke on Monday morning with the appearance of his annual herpes outbreak on his chin. Thankfully, leftover creams from the last few outbreaks is taking care of it. Good golly.

Thanksgiving Thursday!

Our Thanksgiving meal was delicious! The usual fare with family to share it with! And beautiful, beautiful weather!

Brad spent one afternoon early in the week cleaning up the last of our leaves. We have one huge maple tree in the backyard and it seemed to take forever for it's leaves to drop. But once they did, we had quite the pile for leaf jumping! The boys took advantage Thursday afternoon, before the weather turned cold and snow appeared.

Black Friday shopping wasn't too high on my list of things to do, but I gotta admit it was a little enticing knowing that Brad could go with me because my parents were here to be with the boys. And since stores are now opening as early as Thursday morning (ridiculous), Brad and I found our way out for Walmart's 8pm opening.

Oh Walmart. You are not my favorite, but your deals are hard to beat.

It was our only stop for the night, and we were successful in what we went there for. And I did head out again later Friday morning to spend some free money I had (those save $10 on a $10 purchase coupons are hard to just throw away!).

My parents left early Friday morning to head back home, and by the time I walked out the door to run those few errands, I was greeted with snow sprinkles. Not enough to leave a trace, but enough to want to catch a few on our mittens.

A quick run through the driveway with excitement for our first snowfall before heading out for an afternoon showing of The Lorax.

Our library shows free movies during school breaks, and this was just what we needed to get out of the house and do something different. I took the boys with me while Brad stayed home to watch football. I took a shopping break in the morning; I guess it's only fair that he gets a football break. :)

That little bit of snowfall definitely put me in the mood to get going with the Christmas decorating. But more than that...finally, after 10 years of marriage, we have upgraded to an actual adult-sized Christmas tree! For the past several years, we've had a 4-foot tree that has served it's purpose well, but we have definitely outgrown it with size of our family and the number of ornaments we have. Each year I tell Brad I'm going to pick up a new tree during the after Christmas clearance, but, obviously, that hasn't happened. So, after a chance conversation with some new friends at church, they have generously gifted a 7 1/2 foot tree to us and we I am beyond thrilled about it! It's a beautiful tree, and fits perfectly in our new home!

I brought up our boxes of Christmas decor and the boys and I started on hanging our ornaments.