Thanksgiving Weekend

I hope that each of you had a pleasant and relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. My family spent the holiday weekend at home. On Wednesday night my niece took the train out to our house from the city. We spent the evening catching up, playing Scattergories, and eating burritos made by Alexander, Sophia and myself and then yogurt parfaits brought by Ashley for dessert. (Unfortunately for me I only enjoyed these foods through my family as I ate my Body Ecology Diet approved foods. Will power is definitely one thing I have.) On Thursday the kids joined me in the kitchen to prepare our Thanksgiving meal. I absolutely love the kids in the kitchen with me. It is my favorite part of the day. (Thanks to my mother who gave me wonderful holiday memories of helping in the kitchen!) The food turned out great! That evening my brother-in-law and his lovely wife joined us for dessert. I was really touched that Hilary made gluten free, pumpkin chocolate chip bread for us and remembered I don't eat dairy and brought coconut ice cream instead (unfortunately I can't eat it right now either!).

On Friday the four of us decorated the Christmas tree and house and then watched Angels and Demons, which we loved and Elf, which we will most likely watch a few more times this season since it is one of our favorites. Every year since the kids were little I have given them an ornament to represent their main interest of the year. This is considered the "first gift of the season" since they open it before we start decorating the tree. This year I gave Sophia an ornament that says, "Book lover". On the front it says, "So many books, so little time." In reality, Sophia has always been a book lover. However, this year she has devoted a lot of time to reading and always has several books waiting to be read. I love when she gets up in the morning and shares what she read the night before. This year just seemed to be the year that books became her best friends.

For Alexander, I found an ornament with a snowman playing the piano. This year Alexander has really been into music. He knows a lot of bands, he is always using the Shazam app on my phone to identify songs he likes, he became a huge Beatles fan and this is the year he asked Steve to teach him to play the piano. Every morning he wakes up, prepares his breakfast and heads down to practice the piano. When he is ready for something new he asks Steve to help him.
We have many ornaments on the tree that the kids have given us. This year Sophia made a happy face for me out of clay and beads. It's adorable.

For Steve, Sophia made the letter "D" for dad.

This is my all time favorite ornament which was made by Alexander about five years ago. On the back of the cape it says, "#1 Super Mom".

The tradition at our house has always been to rotate between Alexander and Sophia putting up the star. Sophia put the star up this year and said, "It isn't as fun as when Dad lifted me up to put the star on the tree. " This was the first year both kids were too big to have Steve lift them up. After we put the star on the tree and began decorating I found a note we wrote last year that said, "2009 Alexander puts up the star, not Sophia." Oops! We always forget who did it the year before and started writing notes.

As we enter the Christmas season, I find that my favorite things about the season happen right here in my own home. Last night we each mentioned things we were going to do individually and somehow we all ended up sitting in the living room around the Christmas tree talking and laughing. I like that the tree has that affect.