We'd Never Heard of a Dump Being Closed On Thanksgivin'!

This Thanksgiving started out to be a huge disappointment. 

Last year we woke up to a parade or turkeys strutting through the yard. They marched from the front where they perched on the trees to their little turkey burrow in the back where they wintered. Our turkeys did not live up to their expectations this year. This year we had a fine little flock. We watched little hatchlings grow into plump and delicious specimens. I guess they got nervous with us licking our chops and disappeared about a month ago.

So to get our Thanksgiving celebrations back on track we all climbed into the red VW Microbus (or the closest thing we have to it) pumped up Alice's Restaurant and made a trip to the town dump. 

What?!?!

"We'd never heard of a dump being closed on Thansgivin'!"

To cheer ourselves we decided to "brine" our little turkies for the feast!

Things were looking up! 

Abizella made us a scrumptious little turkey snack.

And then the FEAST! We had all the Jr. Andrus ladies, Jessica, Julie and Abi plus Abi's boyfriend. In addition to all of our usual favorites, Jessica made an amazing green bean casserole and roasted vegies. Julie made some tasty pop-overs. We are excited to add these recipes to our future Thanksgiving table. And definitely these ladies as well! 

The BIG kids went to a movie with the Andrus crowd and the littles hung out with me. 

We played trains.

We had so much fun that we did it again when the big kids came home!

We missed all of our family that is far far away. We love you all SO much.We are thankful to have such an amazing "blood" family and blessed to have our wonderful adopted New England family as well! We missed spending the day with Joe and Holly who were probably dining on Peking Duck in China.

Those Aren't Pillows!

Ahhhh! Thanksgiving Eve. 

Almost more fun than Thanksgiving Day. 

It is when Pops pulls out Trains, Planes and Automobiles and the biggest bowl we own and makes a mountain of stuffing. 

That would be Grandma Garside's stuffing. 

In fact, the best part for me is pulling out all those scrumptious tried and true recipes from all those meals that we have loved over the years from all of the people that we love.

This year Abizella insisted on making her own apple pie. While she stakes claim to the pie filling, the crust belongs to Aunt Charlene. You can't beat her, "Never Fail Pie Crust" recipe!

We are well on the way to a major feast. On top of Grandma Garside's stuffing, we made Abizella's apple pie, Glama's amazing apple crisp, Todd's Yummy Yummy Yams Yum Yum Yum (which, while served during the dinner course, the 2 cubes of butter and 2 cups of sugar qualify it as dessert), and Better Homes and Garden's Pumpkin Pie... it is America's pumpkin pie. Tomorrow we will add Grandma Sherrie's banana cream pie to the dessert selection.

How I love a bustling kitchen! ...and all those busy hands!

...BTW, if you didn't catch the reference in the title, it is time to pull out Trains, Planes and Automobiles and make it part of your tradition too!

Done Deal

It's official.  It has been a couple of weeks since it all clicked. Pops has declared victory. It has been 7 months since this kid refused the diaper... but he is finally 100% devout to porcelain. Is it wrong to say that relations have improved *drastically* since the conversion? It is better all around, Pops and I don't have to attend to excrement (a euphemism) and Little Chief doesn't have to wear a diaper anymore, in his words "diaper too eeeethcy!"

A Place to Think

This kid is a sponge for information. He loves to hear how the world works and then philosophize about it. His favorite radio program is, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!" the NPR news quiz. When it comes on while we are out running our Saturday errands he says, "YES! My favorite show!" (like he just scored big) and if I ever have to switch to something else (for censoring purposes) he says, "Hey Mom!  I was listening to that!"

An intellect like this requires a certain time and space to process. The great inventions, ideas and innovations of tomorrow are born and incubated today in this favorite think spot.

It's When New England Shines

I used to hate Autumn, being the death of summer, but honestly Autumn in New England just can't be beat. The weather is spectacular, the leaves are brilliant, and you know how I feel about the apples.  Even with the enormity of the fall clean-up around here, I have been thoroughly converted to Fall.

We've been tackling a few Fall projects around here. 

First on the docket was the box of nearly 200 bulbs Holly sent from her trip to Holland this Spring. We had to find them a nice cool home for the winter. Nothing these Toads like more than a shovel and lots of dirt! Now we can't wait to see the fruits of our labors come Spring!

Next up on the list was tackling the brier patch that has been doing us all in (even Shadow!). I had about 300 of these little stickers in my hair before I was done, but I did come off conqueror!

And then the leaves, oh. my. We still have a couple of more weeks of hauling them back to the compost mound in the back corner of the yard. This isn't even a quarter of the pile, it goes on forever and makes the perfect playhouse for the Toads.

They have fashioned a little secret lean-to club house (that the adults know nothing about), complete with a toilet, which is rumored to have been of full service to all club members.

Let this glorious season stretch out forever (well at least until Spring!) 

Long Live Autumn!

Sweet Teeth

"Mom, I hope I don't have diabetes! All my teeth are sugar teeth! 

Every time I loose a baby tooth, a great big sugar tooth grows in its place!"

We hear you Abz, we all love your mouth full of sweet teeth and all the treats you make us!

...well, except maybe those of us with a mouth full of sugar teeth AND diabetes too!

Haloweenies

Oh man. We hate to see it go. 

Halloween is the BEST! 

We love the scary costumes, the tasty candy, the silly songs, the fun crafts and the spooky stories!

We didn't *love* mom's sad attempt to get us to eat something nutritious on the one night of the year when sound nutrition is absurd.

So we suited up for the kill.

And put the creeps on the house... Hey... the more kids we scare away, the more candy for us!

But our best efforts to "haunt" the house were all reduced to smithereens when we put the "Welcome Wagon" out. Little Chief opted to stay home with mom and man the candy bowl. He perched himself by the front door and then jump up and down when he saw little spooks approaching. He yelled, "Mommy, Mommy they're coming!" Then he would say to the kids, "You want some candies?" and then dole out a piece while telling them, "I an elephant!" He would then wave and say, "Happy Halloween!"

The big spooks joined us for some spooky movies and a major pig out.  

Superkid's favorite treat is 3 Musketeers. 

Abizella prefers licorice. 

No contest for Tadpole, it's the Skittles. 

For Little Chief, 

Not Lemonheads.

We were all extremely pleased with the holiday and happily squandered the rest of the night away munching and watching the, "Headless Horseman" and "Casper the Friendly Ghost".