Happy Thanksgiving

It has been a long time since I have posted.  A lot has been going on, including a change to my work schedule, 3:45 am calls with Malaysia, my 38th birthday, and Thanksgiving. 

Isaac and Mackenzie both continue to entertain us immensely.  They have been having a lot of fun picking out Christmas presents.  Last weekend I took them to Meijer and after grocery shopping I let them wander the toy aisles to pick out what they wanted to ask for from Santa and Dad and me.  They had already checked all of the toy catalogs we had received and circled what they wanted in those and we had shared that information with grandparents and aunts (cause lets face it, they do the shopping).  Mackenzie picked three items out pretty quickly and narrowed it down to two quickly.  Isaac on the other hand wanted everything he saw in the "boy" aisle and it took him a while after we left the store to narrow down his top two.

When we were watching the Thanksgiving parade we saw the Rockettes.  We had gone to the ONU Holiday Spectacular the weekend before and one of the songs performed was "I Want to be a Rockette".  I asked Mackenzie if she remembered the song and she explained to me that she does not want to be "Rockhead".  We explained to her what the Rockettes were and she watched them for a while.  Lately Mackenzie makes up songs and sings them constantly.  She informed Brian that if he needed her, she would perform in one of his shows.

On Tuesday Brian took Isaac up to Grandma Kathy and he got to spend a day and night alone at Grandma Kathy's with Lexie, whose school had been cancelled due to ice.  Brian, Mackenzie and I joined them on Wednesday evening for dinner.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  My Grandma and Grandpa Conklin joined us for dinner as well as Michael.  Misty joined us after dinner.  After the kids went to bed we played some high-energy domino games and drank some of the wine Mom and I got during my birthday trip to Sandusky.  A lot of little things reminded me of my dad over the weekend and I had my moments of sadness.  It was odd to me that what made me most sad was seeing the desk he has setup in the basement to work on his wine bottle lights, lazy susans and other woodworking while I was folding laundry.  However, it was nice to be with family.  The whole holiday was low stress (the most stressful time for me was being in charge of the gravy).  The kids even seemed to get it.  They got along most of the time, went to bed fairly quickly each night, and helped out as much as they could.  Today before we left Isaac helped Grandma put the Christmas decorations outside.  When I called my mom tonight she told me Mackenzie was quite the task master and that they had gotten a lot of decorating done in the house.

Meanwhile Isaac came home with us and we got "Planes" from the RedBox and had dinner in the den, with a fire going and watched the movie.  He watched the movie very intently and when the two main planes had a disagreement he got very sad and started crying.  It is so amazing to get to see the two of them develop.  It is heartwarming to see that he understands the emotions and the relationship between the characters.  When I met with Isaac's teacher last week she explained to me that she loves listening to Isaac during morning prayer time because he speaks to God like he is a friend and he tells him long, detailed stories.  I love that his teachers pay attention to those things.

So things are good, not great yet, but very good.  Brian and I are watching "World War Z" right now.  I have finally decided it is time to forgive Brad Pitt for leaving Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie.  I thought that Brian would like this movie because he has been talking about the zombie apocalypse.  Hopefully I don't have nightmares tonight.

An Extra Halloween!

Well, our rescheduled trick-or-treating was last night and was a huge success.  It was a really nice evening, although it got dark and cold pretty fast while we were out (thank you Daylight Savings Time).

Here is a shot of the kids and their cousins at our house:

Unfortunately Mackenzie is leaning on her pumpkin, so you can't see its face, the first she has ever cut out on her own.  However, if yo utake a look at Isaac's pumpkin, you can see the blood drop that Mackenzie added to his jack o'lantern.  I am calling it a blood drop because that is what it looks like to me.  Neither of the kids suggested that it was supposed to be a blood drop.

The kids had fun going around the neighborhood trick or treating and most of the houses in our neighborhood participated, despite the reschedule.

I am headed to Tempe, AZ this afternoon for a couple of days for work.  We shall see how much candy is left when I get back :)  To be honest, most of the time when the kids get candy I end up eating some of it and then throwing a lot out.  They are really excited when they get it, but then they forget about it.  I am sure that will change as they get older.