Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we drove 2.5 hours to Chad's parents' house in Hagerman. We had been fighting a cold bug that most of us had graduated from, except for Daniel who was in the middle of his 3rd day of fever and had a cough. (Joseph was the only other one to have a fever and it wasn't real reliable, so I was surprised Daniel still had his.) Chad and Nathan never got sick. The last time we had a family gathering like this, we had sick kids so we cancelled. This time, it was too close to Thanksgiving, we were bringing the plates and rolls, and we would have been without a dinner of our own - so we decided to risk it (plus, it wasn't a throw-up germ). Since then, I've heard of at least two different families that have been sick and it was probably from us. I feel really bad about that and I apologize to them. It's so hard to know what to do sometimes.

In addition to plentiful germs, the food was also plentiful (and better for the body). Here is Rebekah, doing her best to avoid the nasty, healthy food and only pick out the "treats." Chad is trying to influence her for good.


There were 31 people in attendance, aged about 6 months to about 568 months. ;) For that many people (and months) you need a really long table.

It's impossible to get such a long table in one camera shot and still see who is at the table. So took two shots.

The food was really yummy (at least what I ate) and more than filling. Many thanks to Peter and Kelly and anyone else who brought over the whole platter so I could keep eating without burning any unnecessary calories.

After dinner, some of us slumped around and questioned our eating habits. Nathan and Rebekah tried to make me feel guilty by working Grandma's elliptical machine together. When you're the size of Nathan and Rebekah, it's not something you can do by yourself!

Other children burned off their feasts by jumping on the trampoline. Leah and Nathan (again with the guilt, Nathan?) and their cousins had fun getting a natural high. ;)
I have not jumped on a trampoline since I was 23. I think I will be able to say that for the rest of my life.

After the feasting over turkey was over and cleared up, and a couple of hours had passed, it was pie time. Chad's family has a pie palooza every Thanksgiving. I don't know what their record is, but this year was a record for me. Check out all those pies. You can try to count, but you'll come up short because they aren't all in the picture. There were 31 pies (it might be 32). Our family of 8 only brought 2. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered if we didn't show up! ;)

Sarah really like the chocolate pie that Grandma fed her. When Chad was dressing Sarah that morning, I was thinking her shirt was a little underwhelming when it came to a holiday outfit. But when this happened, I was glad for a shirt that would welcome a few more dribbles!

Sarah has a little cousin that is about 4 months older than she is. They don't see each other too often, so it's pretty much like meeting a stranger each time. But they seemed to be hitting it off nicely this time!

In Chad's family, a gathering is never complete without at least one game. (I played a game of Phase 10 earlier in the day that lasted at least an hour and a half and never got off Phase 3. They teased me for throwing the cards after each round, but REALLY!)

We have "Our Book of Thanks" that we started last year. We have everyone write what they are thankful for and we put in a picture of the whole group that was there. Here is Rebekah writing her thanks.

Here is the picture for the book. There are 8 siblings in Chad's family; five of the siblings made it this time. Santa needs to bring me a better camera if I am going to be expected to take nice pictures of a group this big ever again!

We drove back home that night. We left about an hour later than I said I wanted to (as I knew we would) and got back home a little before midnight. It never fails that when we drive in the dark, certain people in this family have serious meltdowns about 50 minutes from home. Tradition was honored and I was so glad to not be a Black Friday devotee.

The kids enjoyed playing with cousins that they don't get to see very often and it was nice to be part of a family celebration (instead of by ourselves). We must have left the rest of our germs behind because Daniel's fever finally passed and no one else got sick. Now we live in fear of the flu bug that is going around the schools and community right now.

Christmas conundrum

We have a lot of family, between Chad and I. There are 9 families with cousins. I usually like to find a gift that I can duplicate 9 times and will fit all the age groups. (I think our oldest cousin is 14.)

The hard part is, with so many different families, come different likes and dislikes. So I think this family might like this, but that family will snarl and toss it aside. So then I think I could do this, but that family might wonder what I was thinking. And then I think, I could do this, but then realize that I'm not spending that much on my own kids.

So, what do I do to show all the families that we're thinking of them, without our time or effort going to waste because they either didn't like it and tossed it, or don't have a use for it, or ... you get my point.

Does anyone have any suggestions for good gifts? I know we could draw pictures and send warm greetings. I get that. I'm trying to actually think of tangible gifts that can be used/enjoyed for at least a small while. I don't have a lot of time to make things (6 kids of my own to create for with not so much time to do that), and my budget is a little smaller than other years.

Maybe there is a good family gift that everyone could enjoy? What are some things that your family has received that you liked? Games? Treats? What?

SEND ME YOUR IDEAS!

Pictures from SLC

Here are the pictures of feeding the birds at Tracy Aviary and our cousin's birthday party in SLC 2 weekend ago. I forgot that I had promised them! (My kids get after me all the time about "forgetting" my promises!)

Thank goodness for cameras with timers. I actually got into this shot!

Rebekah with a sun conure eating from her apple stick. (This was as close as she was willing to get.)

Chad and Joseph...just watching, not feeding

Nathan had a good time feeding the birds.

Here is one on Leah's stick, just moments before it bit her. You may notice there is no more apple on the end of her stick.

Daniel stayed fixed in this one spot and catered to all the birds he could!

I couldn't resist this shot of Daniel holding Rebekah's hand. They really do like each other!

And of course, you have to actually stop and look at some birds!








After the aviary we went to the birthday party. It was a cowboy theme.

Here is Leah shooting her horse in the head. I'm pretty sure that's bad horesmanship.

Chad and Nathan in a gun fight.

Daniel in his cowboy hat.

? There are so many captions for this photo. I didn't take this one.









And that is our Saturday two weeks ago. See? We brought you right along with us!

H unting for gold (and the rest of our weekend)

Since Saturday was St. Patrick's Day, we had a hunt for leprechaun gold. It was a picture scavenger hunt and along the way, everyone got a little stuffed white/green bear. At the end of the rainbow was a clear green piggy bank and 3 gold foil-covered chocolate coins. There was money taped to the back of the coins for the bank.

The day had been beautiful so we walked 15 minutes to Subway for dinner. While we were there, we were talking about our hunt we were going to have when we got home. Daniel, ever skeptical, piped up, "Leprechauns aren't true!" We reminded him that it would be wise to believe, if only for a few hours.

Earlier that day the kids had enjoyed playing with their Laird cousins. Daniel seemed to slip right into "take charge" mode. He's lucky they were willing to play along since 2 of them tower over him. Leah enjoyed having an older girl to play with. She didn't even seem to notice that her cousin was 5 years older.

Chad got deep in rabbit gunk as he moved the cage out of the greenhouse. There was a lot of fertilizer in there! Chad and Daniel planted some berry bushes. Will we have berries for jam this Fall? It's always a gamble.

I spent the day working on my quilt block creation and doing laundry (when I wasn't napping). The laundry takes the whole day and I didn't get the last load into the dryer until after 11:30 PM. It goes without saying that it's still not folded.

In Primary yesterday, Daniel was yucking it up as usual. Gratefully, I only had 3 kids in class. The 3 hardest ones! One of the kids said, "Daniel is so funny!" And then the other one added, "Yeah! He's like a clown!" I think Daniel grew 1/2 an inch (or was it just his head?).

Rebekah started saying, "Bye-bye" yesterday. She was trying to repeat names, too, but they weren't very clear. She's very good at saying, "uh-uh." As you picture that, add a baby scowl.

So now the week has begun again. Ho hum. I do get to take the cat to the vet for booster shots today and Daniel's P/T conference is this afternoon. I teased him last night and said I had to go talk to the teacher to find out how bad he is. He looked at me for several seconds and then said, "I'm not bad!" Good! Let's keep it that way, Mr. Clown!

Are we almost there yet?

That's what Leah was asking me less than 30 miles into our drive yesterday. Not a bad question, unless you consider that the ride is more than 3 hours long! After much crying and hysterics (the kids weren't very well behaved either), the girls finally fell asleep around 60 miles and slept for 50. Nathan never complained. What a lovely boy! He took a nap when the girls did, so I had the ride all to myself for a bit.

We were glad to finally arrive and get out of our seats. The kids had fun playing until bedtime. Nathan almost got to sleep a room with his cousins until I found him on the floor between the beds and one of his cousins midair in a leap over his head. Considering they (cousins) had school in the morning, I thought it best to put Nathan into bed with Leah. He never even balked.

All cousins have been gone all day. We are dying. It's hard to find something to do in a strange house for very long. It's 2:40 and they should be home soon. Then the tutoring work begins and the house starts trembling with 6 kids shedding energy equal to at least 10!

We should try to go somewhere tomorrow.

Cousins...we have how many?

Now that we are done with holiday traveling and travailing, I can take a minute to immortalize it all.

On the day after Christmas we left to visit family 4 1/2 hours away. That's 14 cousins in one Big Bang! I'll bet you've never even heard that version of the "theory!" There was so much commotion that I didn't even really see my kids. They just got swallowed up. I think they enjoyed themselves and were adequately worn out by the time we left. They got to go swimming, watch a ton of movies and played with a whole different set of toys.

We also learned that Daniel is allergic to something during the trip. It would be really nice if I knew WHAT it was that turned him bright red on his cheeks and pink-splotchy over the rest of his body (he was affected head to toe...still has some rash left on his wrists and feet). The mostly likely culprit? Cheese. Either an aged cheese or some canned nacho cheese. I'm trying to get the desire to try the foods again and see what happens. Maybe that's a good Spring Break activity so we don't scare the other kids at school.

So we returned from that trip on Saturday (31 Dec) and then took another car trip to visit the other set of cousins 3 hours away, in a different direction this weekend. There are only 8 cousins there. We went for the first cousin baptism in that side of the family. Coincidentally, there were two baptisms of cousins happening where we'd just been. Tis the Season!

The kids got to play more and watch more TV and ride in the car again (Rebekah and Leah are not good in the car at all). So far, no allergic reactions! *WHEW!* We love to visit cousins, but love to be home again and back to "normal."

So it appears that we have 22 cousins (with 4 more siblings yet to have any children). Is that all? I swear it seemed way more than that in the moment!