Thanksgiving

Time sure does fly during the holidays. I am happy that this is my second baby whose pregnancy has been hurried along by holiday happenings.

Thanksgiving week was fun. We went to a celebration in Harrison's class. They each took a turn saying what they were thankful for. Harrison was thankful for his mom and dad. Pretty sweet. Then they sang some songs and he was really embarrassed as you can see from these pictures.

It was crazy hair day, so that's why his hair is red.

Then we had pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, and egg rolls. I know, random, but delicious. I've been happy that Harrison's class is pretty diverse (our town is very homogeneous, so we must have all the other races in this one class). One of the Asian moms made egg rolls.

I was trying to get Harrison to look up and Elizabeth said, "He's busy eating, how about one of just me?" And then proceeded to do her new signature picture face.

Her other new thing for pictures is a hand up, usually in front of the face. Arg.

We've been lucky to have a student teacher for the first 14 weeks of school, and she's super fun. Both my kids adore Mrs. Kozmata. You can see why kids would like her -- she's fun and silly.

This was her second to last day and we were all sad to see her go. Harrison worked really hard on a book for her called:

I Love Mrs. Kozmata Bekuz. . .

-I love her.

-She is funy and sily.

-She is butiful and fanse. She wars mak up and julre.

(He is so funny. He often told me how fancy she was that she wore make-up and jewelry. It cracks me up that he notices stuff like that. He also told me he's really going to miss looking into her beautiful eyes. His primary teacher just told me that when she told the class that they were getting a new teacher next year he said, "I'm going to miss looking at your beautiful face." I think we have a ladies man in the making.)

-I wil mis hr a lot.

-So wil my sistr.

Elizabeth really will miss her too. Mrs. Kozmata has been added to the list of people she pretends to be or wants me to pretend to be ("I'm just tending" she tells me.)

Thursday morning began with a pumpkin pancake breakfast. My family tradition was to have this for dinner the night before Thanksgiving, but we were downtown that night, so we did it for breakfast.

(Note the hand up I mentioned previously.)

Here's some of my silly kids at the Tibbitts house for Thanksgiving dinner.

He kept giving her kisses while I tried to take pictures. Sweet.

His new thing in pictures is to put up a three. I don't know if it's a modified peace sign or what!?!

The Tibbitts are like family to us. Cindy and my mom were college roommates and we've kept in touch since. So being with them was the next best thing to being with my own family. It was fun to have Julia and Gloria in from Utah.

The food was DELICIOUS!!! Cindy and her girls are excellent cooks. Some of the best stuffing and sweet potatoes I've had. I had to bring my own mashed potatoes because I can't have Thanksgiving without these certain mashed potatoes (cream, cream cheese, butter, garlic salt and green onions). I was the only one who ate mine, because the Tibbitts are as opinionated about food as I am and they are mashed potato purists.

I was proud and grateful that I was able to have enough self control not to be miserable by the end of the night. The last time I was really pregnant at Thanksgiving I ended up purging at midnight because I was still so full and uncomfortable that I couldn't sleep.

So much to be thankful for. The gospel of Jesus Christ, family, a helpful husband, sweet and funny children, friends, health, employment, food, technology (internet, cell phones, texting, DVR, blogging), reliable cars, a comfortable home, epidurals (thinking ahead here), an easy pregnancy (so far, knocking on wood), I really could go on and on.