Fridays Fave 5 - November 28th

I look forward to this every week. It's so nice to reflect on the positive things that have happened during the week!!

1. Parent/Teacher Conferences - We were lucky enough to have the conferences for all four girls scheduled on the same day. This meant that it took up an entire afternoon, but it also meant that my husband and I got to have lunch out together again :) The conferences were great because we got to have the teachers' undivided attention to discuss how each girl is doing. We are lucky that school is going so well for all of them at this point!

2. My snowman earrings - I bought these from Avon 2 or 3 years ago. I try to wear them when snow is still a novelty for the year and I'm not tired of it yet. Usually I don't wear them until January because I wear Christmas earrings for most of December. I got some use out of them this past week, that's for sure!


3. The bathroom scale - I will spare everyone a picture of this! Usually the scale and I are not on good terms. It likes to tell me things that I don't want to hear and in turn, I usually say mean things back! This week, the scale has been kind to me which has made me happy. We're not at the point of sending each other flowers or anything crazy like that, but for now, we're good.

4. Facebook - I recently joined Facebook and I have to say, I'm hooked!! I've reconnected with a bunch of old friends. There is such a snowball effect once you join and it's so much fun to watch it. However, I do think that my husband is tired of hearing about the updates to my Facebook list!

5. My brother - I got to spend time with my brother yesterday. I always look forward to seeing him. I don't get to see him as often as I like because we are both busy and because we are at different places in our lives right now. His daughter is in college and I have young children. I am married and he is single. But, when I do get to see him, I know it will be fun. I think that he is a very good-looking, funny guy and I love him.

Visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for great lists of Friday favorites.

Happy Thanksgiving

This


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our nice, quiet Thanksgiving.

My parents ended up leaving for Alabama on Thanksgiving morning to see my Grandmother who continues to not do well.

I knew that I didn't want to rush out and buy things to make Thanksgiving at home, so we decided to go to Cracker Barrel for lunch. My brother joined us which was wonderful. It was really a nice time. My brother and I talked about our Grandmother and shared memories. He is six years older than I am so he has a lot of memories that I don't have. It was great to hear his stories!

After lunch, we were hoping to go and see and movie, but during lunch, our oldest daughter developed a headache and wasn't feeling well. We decided to head home and ended up renting Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Movie. After some Tylenol and rest, she was feeling much better later in the day.

I feel like we have many, many blessings in our lives and I often take time to reflect on them. Thanksgiving, however, is a great time to share them. Things that I am especially thankful for this year are:
* my health,
* my darling little girls who are healthy and provide a ton of entertainment,
* my husband who is patient, understanding and supportive,
* my parents who are beyond supportive and provide such a presence in our lives, especially for the girls,
* my brother who I know will always have my back,
* the health and well-being of our loved ones,
* that we have had the opportunity to see and spend time with so many extended family members, on both sides of the family,
* our house and my husband's job.

We are very, very lucky!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Wordless Wednesday

My poem

T'was the day before Thanksgiving
and here at our house,
I'm trying to drown out the fighting
by clicking the mouse.

Though there are many things to do,
such as cleaning, laundry and such,
I'm enjoying today
because we're not in a rush so much.

Looking forward to this weekend,
it starts such a festive time of year.
We plan on doing our decorating
so I better get my rear in gear!!

Now, for planning tomorrow,
it wouldn't be such a worry
If my kids liked and would eat
the trimmings and turkey :(

Well, my down time is over.
I really must stop this play.
May you all have a wonderful
Thanksgiving Day!!


I know, I know...I'm no poet, but I happen to be an excellent procrastinator.

Menu Plan Monday

This week I am keeping meals as simple as possible.

Monday - Spaghetti

Tuesday - French Onion-Pork Chop Skillet - anyone recognize this from the Kraft magazine? I love getting those in the mail!!

Wednesday - Hot dogs

Thursday - Right now, we're just not sure what we are going to do for Thanksgiving. Usually we go over to my parents' house and my mom cooks. Because of our upcoming vacation, she and I were talking about possibly going out to eat instead. Now, it turns out that my parents and brother may not even be in town. My grandmother isn't doing well and my parents are heading down to Alabama. They are either leaving on Wednesday or Saturday and will make that decision tomorrow. Depending on how things go, I am also entertaining the thought of flying down, but that is probably unlikely. So...my husband and I are working on a plan B for Thursday. I think that he and I have different ideas. He said that we'll have (a scaled down version) Thanksgiving here. I haven't mentioned this yet, but I still like the idea of going out this year. We'll see.

Friday - Monte Cristo Salads

Saturday - Pizza night

Sunday - BBQ ribs (we didn't end up having this last week)

Visit I'm an Organizing Junkie for some great meal ideas!!

Sweet Home Alabama

When I first started this blog, we were days away from driving down to Alabama. I knew that it was going to be a special trip and wanted to document it. However, after locking my husband out of his work computer one morning in the hotel room and having to face his extreme irritation about that (he had to call in to work and have his password reset, or something like that), I didn't end up documenting it like I wanted to. Once we returned home, life got in the way, and I just wasn't able to put the whole experience into words at that point.

My mother is originally from Alabama and her mother, her siblings, their children and grandchildren, among other extended family, still live there. Our trip down was very last minute. My niece was graduating from high school in Mississippi, just four hours away from my family in Alabama, so my parents and my brother (my niece's dad) were going down for the graduation and then onto Alabama where they would be able to spend time with our family there.

Originally, we weren't going to go. I would have loved to have gone to my niece's graduation and then onto Alabama, but I didn't want to go by myself and my husband couldn't take that much time off from work. Plus, we already had two other vacations planned for the year, one of them just a month after the graduation. Then there was the financial part of it and my daughter's 6th birthday was coming up (and we were out of town for her 5th birthday. She wanted to be home this year). There were so many reasons to not go.

On the other hand, the last time I was down there was over 11 years ago and it was for my grandfather's funeral. Most of my girls had never met most of my relatives and I really wanted them too. I knew that my girls would just love them!! I knew that the chances of my brother and my parents and us all being down there at the same time again were very slim. Who knew when we would get a chance to go down?? After much discussion and planning (in a short period of time) we decided that if we didn't go to the graduation (Sorry Jess!! We love you and are very proud!!) we could go for a few days. I was beyond thrilled!!

When I was growing up, we made regular trips down to see my mom's family (yearly for awhile and then maybe every other year). I have wonderful memories of those trips. My grandmother's house was the focal point where everyone would meet. My mother has three siblings and I have seven cousins, all fairly close in age. We (usually) got along great and had so much fun playing together. I could go on and on about my memories...I think that cousins are the greatest relationship. Better than friends because of the family connection and better than sibling because there usually isn't the bickering :) I hope that my girls have at least a fraction of the relationship that I had (have) with my cousins. It is very special.

So I got to see my aunts and uncles and cousins and their children. What a beautiful group of people. Between my brother, myself and my cousins, we have 15 children. Fourteen of them are in this picture.


Most of us went to a get-together at my cousin's house and I can't really put into words the feelings that I had there. It was amazing being a room being related to that many people. It was also amazing that although I haven't seen them in so long, we were able to pick up like it was last month. I know that it sounds corny, but there was so much love in that room. Actually, I don't think that I have said I love you as much as I did in those few days in Alabama.

I also got to see my sweet grandmother. She was exactly as I remembered her. She is a children-type person (some people are and some people aren't!) and she always made our visits very special. She knew what we liked to eat and always had it. She had child-friendly cups and plates, she had a bedroom devoted to toys and she didn't have any areas of the house that were off-limits. As far as I was concerned, she was the next best thing to my mom. Although I didn't get to spend as much time with her (or anyone) as I would have liked to on this trip, I was so happy that I got to see her and that my girls got to meet my grandmother, especially since they are so close to their grandmother.


My dear grandmother had a stroke last week. She is still in the hospital and at this point, we're not sure what the outcome will be. I am just so glad that we made the decision to go on that trip and that I was able to see her.

Fridays Fave 5

1. Having ice cream (outside) on a 60+ degree day in November. We're in NY, so this is pretty remarkable!!


2. An unexpected lunch date with my husband last Friday. Fun...and we didn't have to pay for a babysitter!!

3. Feeling a little more caught up after "venting" on a blog post yesterday. Thank goodness :) Hopefully, I will be able to continue with that pace and stay on top of things. I at least feel like I'm ready for today which is good because it's a half-day at school (teacher conferences) so we are going to Chuck E.Cheese. I think that you have to be in the right frame of mind to go there. I guess that I am because I'm looking forward to it :)

4. My new adorable little laptop. It is cute, cute, cute! Oh, and it's very useful too! With 6 people vying for time on a computer, it is very helpful to have an additional one. It is amazing to me how much of my life is somehow linked to the computer. This one allows me to be more flexible, for example, I can pull up a recipe on the computer and have it in the kitchen with me.


5. Google Calendar - My husband and I have been using this for awhile now and it has really helped us. He can check the calendar at work and know what is going on and he can add things as well. Well...last week, Jen mentioned that she uses her Google Calendar for several things. I asked her about it and she was nice enough to tell me how she uses her calendars. Now, I have our main calendar as well as a menu calendar and home stuff (like Flylady) calendar. Since my parents are going to Disney with us (but staying in a totally different place) and since my husband has made many plans and reservations for us while we are there, I have even made a calendar for our vacation. This way my parents can check that calendar and know what our plans are for the day. This will hopefully cut down on confusion and miscommunication. Thanks Jen!!

Visit Susanne at Living to tell the Story for some great Friday Favorites.