Well this week seems like it's been a couple of weeks rolled into one. Monday started off with Ben's birthday. To celebrate we went to Tucano's for dinner. The kids love it there because "there's fruit!" Anyone that has been to Tucano's knows it's all about the slabs of meat that they deliver to your table but my kids are sooo excited about the fruit-I promise they get plenty of fruit daily at home- but I guess Tucano's fruit adds to the cool factor! Nick was a little bummed that we didn't go to "Red Losber" but the fruit won him over quickly. We rarely take our kids out to a restaurant to eat because it isn't the funnest adventure but we had a fun time. Afterwards we headed home for cake and presents. The kids got Spiderman 3 for Ben and it included a mask. Either our kids have incredible huge noggins or the mask was made for extremely tiny people because we had quite a difficult time getting it on anyone's head. Eventually we succeeded and everyone had a fun time!
On Tuesday Skylar had her Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast and I went to help out. I was quite impressed with the spread that was provided for the kids! They had a "moment of silence" so that all the kids could think of what they were thankful for. It made me think how sad it is that we can't have a prayers of thanks in school even when celebrating Thanksgiving. Isn't that the entire point of Thanksgiving?
Wednesday was a busy day as I took the kids to the library so that Skylar & Nick could go in the "little door" for story time. Skylar usually doesn't get to go because she's at school so she was really excited to have the day off. I then scrambled the rest of the day to get the house in order and things ready for our trip to California-which we didn't end up taking. We decided to wait awhile until Ben has more vacation hours and we can see his sister, Emily, for a longer time. I'm a little bummed that we didn't go-especially since we were supposed to be at Disneyland right now-but at least I got the house clean, huh?
Thursday was Thanksgiving! We went to my parents house and had a very tiny Thanksgiving compared to what we're used to. There were only 11 of us-my parents, my Grandma, my Aunt Yvonne, my cousin, Mark, my brother, Al, and us Jordans. We had a nice time though and it was kind of relaxing to have such a small group. Thanksgiving always reminds me of my Grandpa Jensen who really made a big deal out of it, including sending a Thanksgiving letter instead of a Christmas one. I'm thankful to him for teaching me the importance of this holiday. I have so many blessings to be thankful for. I'm so lucky!
Once we left my parents house, stuffed of course, we headed home to put up the tree! I am very strict on the Christmas stuff staying put away until after Thanksgiving (via Grandpa's example) but once dinner's over, bring it on! I love the whole Christmas season. We broke out the tree and decorated away. This year should be an interesting one with the decorations since we have a trouble-making 20 month old and a tiny kitten who have both already caused destruction to our tree!
The rest of the weekend brought shopping, shopping, and more shopping! I love going out on Black Friday to get a good deal. This year didn't have that great of deals, at least on the stuff we were looking for-in fact, Ben found better deals online. But it is fun to at least see how crazy people are. I wasn't completely crazy and I didn't head out to the stores until 7:00. The line at Toys R Us wrapped from the front door all around the store and people were saying that they had stood in line for two hours just to check out! I only had 2 items and found that the electronics department had much shorter lines so I lucked out. My goal is to have all of our shopping done by December 1st so that we can spend the entire month enjoying the season-that leaves just this week-I'm a little overwhelmed! Anyway, Happy Holidays everyone!!!