William, age 7 1/2 years

Shopping and Quilting with Beeba

Presenting Dada with a pieced quilt that William and Margaret made for his birthday with Beeba's help. Sorry it is crumpled in this picture - it has a rodeo theme surrounded by nine-patches. At least we did get a birthday shot of Sean! I wish I had a picture of them all working together at the sewing machine, but this happened when I was at work.

Margaret at the local quilt shop.

Which fabric shall I choose?

I just stole and took a bite out of an apple from the break room at the quilt shop! Watch my mother offer to pay for it!

Shopping is fun!

What shall I destroy?

Thanksgiving Day

Uncle Matt cuts the turkey.

And we finally assemble at the table.

We're very excited, but some of us end up eating mainly pickles and ketchup.

Grandma Verdie's 24 hour salad is a big success.

TERRIBLE ERROR!!!! Thanksgiving Day was Sean's 37th birthday...and he ended up taking the pictures so he didn't even make the blog post. BAD WIFE. I gave him the coolest Osprey brand winter pack complete with places to attach your snowshoes and avi-poles and a hydration system designed not to freeze! Happy Birthday, Sean. We love you!

To monopolize their time!

Sean made a brilliant purchase - a Monopoly game! Then he played monopoly with the children for hours and hours and hours on end while I cooked. I think I got the better end of the deal this time!

Raclette Party!

Beeba gave us a raclette maker as a re-entry present to the US of A. I found a shop downtown that sometimes has raclette, sometimes has other suitable cheeses...and we welcomed Beeba with a taste. Next time, we'll make sure we have the right cheese. But this one tasted great!

Laramie Snow Tires

What I am Thankful For

Margaret:

I'm thankful for...
fruit
family
a fridge
boots
friends
ice cream
Thanksgiving
Halloween
Christmas
flowers
pumpkins
hopping
Elena
Mom
Eric
Jokes
William ( William added this one to her list)
William ( added it twice)

William:
I am thankful for
animals
and a home
and books
and
food.
my
self
and
a
bed
and
santaclaus
and
presents ( underlined)
and
Eric
and the WOROLD
I am
thankful
for

Gymnastics

William and Margaret have started taking gymnastics lessons this month.

It is totally fun, of course.

These are pictures of us enjoying a friend's birthday party at the gymnastics center.

My personal favorite is the trampoline, but as much as I patiently waited my turn, I always felt I should let a four year old go before me...so I never got on! Next time.

The favorite of most is the foam pit! You can jump off a tall platform into the foam pit. Beware! It's hard to get out again!

My boys in the foam pit. Need one of these in the basement...

This Kid

This third child thing is complicated,

but it's like dessert to have a third. We are enjoying him so much.

Preparing to curl turkies.

For me, the hard part of turkey curling was getting the family out the door with all of their winter clothing.

Beeba is Here!

Turkey Curling

We arrived at the ice arena and met our opponents.

Then we met our curling "stones", each team got four frozen Butterballs, taped to metal plates.

Team photo!

Eric helped us practice and then went to Beeba during the game.

It wasn't that hard to walk on the ice in tennis shoes. William liked to slide around. I felt it helped my "moonwalk". The music was all 80's all the time, so that's why I was moonwalking.

Practice round.

William does his first throw. He's all serious.

Here we are waiting with our brooms to sweep the turkey to the target!

Here she comes again!

Now, it's my turn.

It's not as easy as it looks on the Olympics!

Can you believe WE WON? Sean's pretty good! He carried the team.

But we forfeited anyway - had to get to a birthday party. No time to win the city championship today. But watch out next year!!! This was the best fundraiser ever.

O joy!

Uncle Mike and Karen are engaged! The happiest news! The most joyous of things! We are so extremely thrilled for the couple and for ourselves!

We're Cooked!

Oh no! I just signed the family up for a Thanksgiving fundraising event called "Turkey Curling". It has to be a team of four and you are supposed bring your own Swiffer (tm). You are supposed to "curl" a turkey across the ice. Costumes optional. Babies in backpacks ok! Double elimination! Our first match is at 1:00 Mountain Time. Beeba is traveling all the way from Bloomington to see this event, but she doesn't know it yet! HA! Luckily, we have a Swiffer in the closet that is in mint condition. Our team name is "We're Cooked!". Wish us luck!!

The Snow Came! 11/9/10

The SNOW has come. And I think it's here to stay. Yesterday we got 6-8 inches and it's going to stay cold and keep snowing about every other day for the rest of the extended forecast. When William saw the snow he got all excited and started pretending to ski all over the house. When Eric saw the snow outside, he said "UH-OH". Margaret was excited to make snow angels.

After a long process of getting everyone dressed, we headed outside to play in the snow and find certain things like the cars and the stairs to the house.

After a fun play, we came back in and completed our new FIRST REAL SNOW ritual.

We expressed out excitement!

And ate snow with maple syrup! YUM! I also made them hot cocoa! Welcome, first snow.

Sankt Martinstag Gaenze - biscuits?

This year I went to William's classroom and told the story of Sankt Martin, which I felt delivered a lovely socialist message right after the elections. ( If you can't remember the story of Sankt Martin,the knight who shares his cape with a cold and hungry man, see November 2007 post). We sang some songs in German, showed a relevant you-tube video of children looking for him with lanterns, and then I served little breads in the shape of geese. The kids were very kind about the goose biscuits, and not one of them declared, as my husband did, that they strongly resemble embryos. Ahem. Of course, when I looked up the recipe for real Gaense-Broetchen the night before...it involved quark. And although I have now found an amazing shop in town which sells all kinds of cool foods including Appenzeller Kaese so authentic (stinky) that when I heated it up at work for lunch I got all kinds of commentary and a nurse following me around with a can of Lysol, I still haven't found quark (dairy product) to make my goose bread with. This is how traditions morph and change with time and location. But I did tell the story, I did sing the songs, and the breads were pretty okay.