Thanksgiving Weekend Activities

It's Sunday now, with nothing planned but fighting the kids at church.  And some kind of dinner.  But, our Thanksgiving weekend was pretty full of activities.

On Wednesday, we met Haley and her kids in West Valley City to ride the trax train downtown to look at the Macy's Christmas windows, and meet grandma for lunch at the City Creek food court.  The kids loved the train, were very well behaved and minus a few meltdowns in the Disney store after lunch, we had a nice ride home on the train as well.

I didn't take Quinn's stroller.  He had to walk.  It just about killed him and he slept on my lap on the train the entire way home.

Generally, I shy away from public transportation because, weirdos, but we had a pretty harmless round trip journey.











On the Friday after Thanksgiving, I had a meltdown.  Pretty typical actually, but a meltdown nonetheless.  It was small, and largely due to a miscommunication about how much work from home Ross was actually doing, but a drink and tots from sonic fixed it right up.  On Friday night, we met all the famdamily up at the Utah basketball game.  We left early because it was a blow out and I didn't feel well.  Also, pretty typical.

On Saturday, we celebrated the Petersen Family Christmas Party.  Uncle Paul was in charge.  We all went bowling and then had lunch in the rec room of his condo complex.  It was a great party and so much fun.  My kids love bowling. It was a really great day.  There were a lot of Petersen family members who were not present, but those of us who were had a great time.  My kids love their cousin Max and just gravitate towards him - Max, thanks for hanging out with my boys!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year, under the direction of my mother, Thanksgiving was to be no pressure and a day with just our immediate family.  That ended up meaning that we didn't go to my grandpa's this year, but instead we had a small family gathering at my house.  This was the first Thanksgiving, in many years, where my mom was able to sit with her grand kids, participate in all their craft projects, and have a hands off, relaxing day.

This also meant, that Ross and I got to host our first ever Thanksgiving AND do it our way, which was a little non-traditional, just the way we like it.  Immediately without question, turkey was OFF the menu, much to the delight of all of us, none of whom are big turkey eaters anyway.

The menu:
24 hour cross rib roast
thinly sliced carrots in a balsamic and orange juice glaze
green beans in brown sugar with bacon and shallots
roasted garlic yukon gold mashed potatoes
lion house rolls

It was a delicious dinner and a wonderful day.  I love my extended family, but sometimes when it's just our small group of Petersen's, Binggeli's and Howden's, it's the absolute best day there could be.

Off Track (again) :: Week Two

Well, another week off track is finished.  That's two down, two to go.

Last week, I felt like I was under an enormous amount of pressure.  I've got some big deadlines looming for a holiday market next week.  I felt foolish because I dropped out of a second December market and lost my entrance money because of it - but I just couldn't do two shows back to back.  We've also had trouble with our season basketball tickets, Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming, and my kids just want to go to lunch every day.  Now, by no means am I opposed to lunch every day, if there were, of course, options other than McDonald's and Little Cesar's.

But, we survived the second week, spending a lot of time at home, but hopefully doing a few fun things, too.

The boys spent a lot of time playing with friends.  Mine craft with Owen and Lego's with Jake (from state farm).  Our "classic" movie for the week was "Home Alone."  They thought it was funny  That movie is really dumb, and it takes a LONG time to build up to the last 20 minutes, but listening to Wyatt laugh those last twenty minutes was pretty priceless.  What is it about boys and nuttal injuries?  I don't get why they laugh.

We went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point.  We hadn't been since February and it was pretty empty which was even better.  The boys had plenty of time to explore and play with things that they don't always have the opportunity because it's usually so crowded when we are there.  And of course, we stopped for fries and cokes on the way home.

Elliott still has band practice when he's off track so it's been good to get him out of bed every morning as he's generally been the couch potato of the three.  But, Wyatt has willingly filled that role and hasn't been getting dressed until around 10:30 every day, driving me nuts.  So, we've been trying to get up and dressed and out of the house the last few days, even Saturday or we will never be to school on time when it's time to go back.

We also helped grandpa with some kitchen projects and on Saturday night, we watched "Jurassic World".  Though many more people were eaten than Ross said would be, it was actually pretty entertaining, fast paced and not scary.  A little violent, but also quite campy.  Nothing like the original which still makes me jump a little.  I guess though, since they made it through this movie unscathed, maybe it's time to introduce them to the other three?

Or, maybe not.

Off Track (again) :: Week One

There is a lot going on in our house.  And, as usual, off-trackedness has fairly rotten timing.  The November off-track is 4 weeks.  It's too cold to be outside, and too close to Christmas to spend all my money at museums and out to lunch.  So, we are left to our own devices to figure out how to occupy 20 weekdays.

It's fun to have the boys around, but it's hard.  You parents who have your kids home all summer can feel my pain, right?  I have a lot going on, and need time during the day to get some quality sewing time in.  The boys want to DO and GO and my children have always struggled finding things to do in their own home full of stuff.

Last week was our first full week off.  I won't lie, Monday and Tuesday were tough, but we finally started to get into a bit of a groove, faster than we normally would, and for that I am grateful.  I think part of it is that Elliott still has to get up and get dressed to go to band practice Tuesday - Friday.  That helps get part of the house rolling.  It's those days where at 11 am, no but me is dressed or has peeled their warm bodies off of a couch that are a little tougher to fight our way through.

The big boys played with friends.  Elliott tried, and mostly on his own, baked cookies.  I introduced the boys to "Jumangi" on Netflix and it both terrified and intrigued them and they (all three) didn't move a muscle the entire movie.  We went on our yearly trip to the aquarium.  We attended our second University of Utah basketball game.  We lunched at Costco and went to Lowes to buy a new Nest thermostat when ours bit the dust.

Pretty successful week, right?

The boy we call Quinn

This third child of mine is a different kind of kid.  When I say, "I love you!" he replies with, "No.  I love Grandma!"  When we talk of his grandma's he gets confused.  My mom is here, in the flesh.  Ross parents are serving a mission so Grandma Connie only appears ocassionaly via Skype.  We often have conversations about grandma's that go:

"I have two grandmas.  Grandma Judy and the white haired one.  What's her name again?"

I say, "Grandma Connie.  Grandma Connie is dad's mom and Grandma Judy is my mom."  He replies with, "No I want her (I think her is plural in his mind for both grandmas) to be my mom."

He says lots of funny things, none of which I can remember right as I'm typing.  He has....


********

I started writing this post about Quinn a couple of weeks ago.  I never finished it.  Now I'm to tired to even try and think about what I was gong to write in the first place.

Since that time though, we have accomplished something that I really never thought would be a reality.  This kid finally pees in a toilet.

It took almost three months of work and fighting; trying and then taking a week or two off and trying again; and several periods of 24 hours where nothing came out of his body except maybe a booger or two (can you believe that this little boy could go 24 hours without peeing?).  But!  BUT, one day, nearly three weeks ago it clicked and he's never looked back.  Not an accident, not a slip up, not a problem!  He has been wearing pull ups, I think mostly because they are like a security blanket but he finally chose to graduate to the Captain America big boy pants and no one could be more proud of Quinn than Quinn.

No more diapers.  I've spent the last nearly 9 years changing someone's diaper with only a 4 month reprieve between Wyatt turning three and Quinn being born.  That's a lot of stinky butts in my general direction.  It's quite the accomplishment and I'm happy for both of us.

"Mom!  I fink I need to go pee!" - never a happier phrase than that one kiddo.

Hooray!

For my dad

My dad is the young men's president at church.  They are doing a missionary themed mutual this week and he asked me to collect about 40 pictures of my brother since he moved from the #greatwhitehope to the #lithuaniaexpress, to show to the kids before their activity.

Of course, I cannot stop at "put about 40 pictures on a flash drive".

I had to do a little bit more.



My brother, oh that brother, will be home in a little over 100 days.  This final stretch is a bit of a killer.

When I texted my mom that the video I made would make my dad cry she replied, "doesn't take much".

February cannot come soon enough.  Or March.  Or whenever he gets back.

Another Halloween Bites the Dust!

It's come and gone, again.  All it's excitement, pent up energy, emotional explosion is over.  Now we're just left with a lot of candy that they really won't ever eat (I'll throw it away in a week), and the countdown to Christmas.

Friday was the annual Halloween parade at school.  I must officially be old because there were so many costumes, particularly girl costumes, that I just had no idea who the kiddos were channeling.  Boys are easy, they are either something gory, a super hero, or a ninja.  For the most part anyway.  Girls are tricky and just confusing.  If a little girl isn't a Disney princess or some kind of witch, I was pretty much lost.

Oh well.

From the moment we started talking about Halloween costumes, Elliott knew what he wanted to be.  Elliott was a nerd.  Yes, he didn't have to try that hard, but he put his whole costume together all on his own.   All I had to do was buy him some "expanders" (suspenders) and help him with his hair.  He pulled it off quite well.




At first, Wyatt wanted to be a butler.  Yes, a butler.  Not knowing what a butler actually is, we talked about being a waiter.  Deciding that he didn't want to carry a tray around as part of his costume, we were stumped.  I decided that he should be "where's waldo".  It took some convincing, but the fact that I would buy him a costume (and I wasn't buying Elliott one), sold him on the idea.  He was the cutest Waldo there every was and was the hit of trick-or-treating on Saturday night.




And then, there was Quinn.  He announced early on that he was going to be a tiger.  Only problem was, he refused to wear a costume.  We already had two monkey suits and a penguin costume at home, waiting to be worn.  His old yoda costume still fit him (barley), but he wasn't having any of that.  So, it became imperative that we figure out how to let him be a tiger without actually wearing a costume.  Thanks to amazon, we made it work.  One ugly tiger t-shirt and some tiger gloves later and the kid was set.  Add some blue whiskers on his face and he was ready....to sit home with me because Halloween is spooky.




My boys were terribly anxious to get out and hit the neighborhood, but as usual, they were done sooner than not and had as much fun sitting at home and passing out candy as they did knocking doors to get it.

Until next year, Halloween.  Until next year.