Eli being adorable

The walk

One super cold day last week, we decided to walk to the shops to buy some baking materials. The littlies hopped into the wagon, and Nate pulled it almost the whole way there.

Best walk ever.





Look at this happy guy:



And these two lucky little siblings:

Christmas, Part 2: The City Tree Lighting

There were some holiday crafts at the library (reindeer headgear):



Some super cute family moments:



Santa and Mrs. Claus (allegedly):



And a giant living Christmas tree in the park:

Christmas, Part 1: The Tree

Reading and writing

Nate is reading so much now. It's amazing to me that 6 months ago he was not at all interested in reading, and upon discovery of comic books, he decided he could read.

Writing, though, has been something that he loses patience with very quickly. For awhile (in the pre-reading days) we had him doing workbook stuff to get him used to writing, but he absolutely hated it. I completely dropped it.

Yesterday he was filling in the information on a family tree birthday card that my mom gave him. I commented that he has really neat handwriting (he does). He said, "I just want to practice writing a bit more so that it gets easier. I want to like to write."

Blew my mind. What a smart kid. I'm so glad I laid off.

Thankfulness

Thanksgiving Eve

I'm really excited about Thanksgiving. A day for being thankful, how awesome is that? I plan to spend the day focused on gratitude. Maybe we'll create some sort of tangible thing - I might steal an idea I heard about making a tree of thankfulness with gratitude leaves. Hmm, that would require some more autumny paper colors... A trip to the store might be in order later.

But first! I am getting the food prep in order. We have a giant turkey in the fridge, just waiting for some brining action. I've never cooked a turkey before in my life, but I'm guessing it will be hard to mess up this fresh pasture raised turkey. Plus, I'll have the help of my mom, who will also be putting together her mom's stuffing recipe in the morning before she comes over.

Today I'm going to make some cranberry sauce from the fresh organic cranberries we picked up at the Beaverton Farmers Market on Saturday. I have a big pumpkin to turn into puree for a pumpkin pie, and I'm going to make my first pecan pie ever. Yum.

Is it crazy that I'm already looking forward to the leftovers? Already looking forward to getting that turkey carcass into my stock pot? But much more than that, I'm looking forward to sharing a day of gratitude with my family and two wonderful friends that I was able to coax into spending the day with us.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!