Thanksgiving Theme

OK, this is mostly for my own benefit in the future but if anyone can use it great! I will be adding to it in the next few days... do you have any more ideas for me?

Books:
An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving by Louisa May Alcott
If You Were At The First Thanksgiving by Anne Kamma
Let's Celebrate Thanksgiving by Peter and Connie Roop
Pilgrims by Mary Pope Osborne and Natialie Pope Boyce
Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas
Thank You, Sarah by Laurie Halse Anderson
Thanksgiving Day by Gail Gibbons
Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation by Diane Stanley
The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George
The Very First Thanksgiving Day by Rhonda Gowler Greene

Crafts:
Crafts for Thanksgiving by Kathy Ross
Thanksgiving Fun by Ronne Randall and Annabel Spenceley
Familyfun.com

Books I want to check out next year!
Grateful: A Song of Giving Thanks by John Buccino
Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markes
Thank You, World by Alice B. Mcginty
Giving Thanks by Jonathan Landon

Favorite Quotes

"We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces and regret weighs tons." Jim Rohn, a motivational speaker

I read this quote today and thought it was pretty powerful...the more I have thought about it throughout the day I'm amazed at how it relates to so many areas of my life. It reminded me of another quote that I wrote down recently.

"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare."

I love quotes like this, they help me from getting sidetracked on unimportant things and stay focused on doing the things that really matter and make a difference in my life and to my family.

Our Week

Our big project last week was getting Kessiah's pinata finished for her birthday party. (See post about Kessiah's birthday for more info)

We spent some time last week talking about Thanksgiving. I've even learned a few new things! For example, did you know that at the first Thanksgiving the children served the adults and had to eat last! The children also had to eat standing up, only the adults got to sit down! Kessiah and Jenessa are worried that I'm going to start some new traditions! As we were talking about the Indians one day, Sienna said "I a Indian and go to the candy party!" She was referring to Halloween when we went trunk or treating in the church parking lot. I thought that was pretty cute to refer to it as a "candy party" And now that our Halloween candy is gone, she thinks we need to go to another "candy party!"

Our fun science project of the week was measuring out the length of our intestines with yarn. Kessiah and Jenessa thought it was really strange that our long intestine is so much shorter than our small intestine and there was some discussion about the need to change the names!

One evening at dinner Logan was making quite a bit of noise while sitting in his high chair so Ryan put his finger to his mouth and said "Shhhh!" Logan copied him by putting his finger to his own mouth and blowing. He has done it several times since then as well (with encouragement). What a cutie and such a copy cat!

Kessiah's Birthday Party, Pinata and Guinea Pigs!

Kessiah had a birthday party on Saturday. We had six kids show up for pizza, a pinata and games.

Kessiah had decided that she wanted a pinata for her birthday party. I was just going to buy one until Ryan thought it would be a fun family project to make one! Thankfully, Ryan was there on Monday night to make the form of the bear with balloons and cover it with the first layer of newspaper and flour paste. Unfortunately, his schedule made it necessary for me to be in charge of the rest of it! It really wasn't too bad except for putting on the crepe paper pieces which was very time consuming, we ended up just putting the pieces on flat on the bottom of the bear so it wouldn't take quite so much time. We did make some memories and Kessiah thought it was great!

After her party we went to a pet store and bought the supplies for her future guinea pigs. (She really wanted a pet last year...don't ask me why since we already have 2 dogs. I told her she had to wait until she was 8 years old and prove to me that she could be responsible enough to take care of them. My real reasoning in making her wait was so that she could use them as a 4-H project but this fall I realized that she wasn't quite old enough...but it was too late for me to tell her she had to wait another year! She has been discussing what pet to get for the past year and waiting as patiently as she could for this birthday to come. After doing some research I felt like guinea pigs were the best option for our family...next to fish which were not an option in her mind! We didn't get the guinea pigs at the same time as the supplies because she didn't like the colors they had. They should be getting more in on Wednesday, so I'm sure we will have 2 little piggies living with us before this week is over!)

Sienna turns 3!

Sienna's birthday was today! Last night I asked her if she wanted a cake or cupcakes...the answer was cupcakes. So I then let her pick out which cake mix she wanted..the answer was our traditional polka dot cake mix. She has made it clear over the past several days that she wanted a pizza party (probably because Kessiah has been talking about her pizza birthday party coming up soon). So we made pizza for lunch today and enjoyed some yummy cupcakes. It took her a few tries to get her candles blown out, but she managed to accomplish the task! I wonder what she wished for!

She received an electronic computer toy and some dress up costumes (dragon, horse, and supergirl). Her favorite costume was the dragon, she put it on almost immediately. She also liked the horse but didn't pay much attention to the supergirl costume today.

It's a joy to watch Sienna grow and learn. At times she is so exasperating and at other times she makes me laugh out loud! I can't believe my baby girl is 3!

Our Week: We have trees!

Yeah! We now have 5 trees in our backyard! Ryan didn't have to work on Tuesday (Veteran's Day) and he took advantage of the time to buy and plant 2 pine trees. They are in the back corners of our backyard. On Saturday, he bought and planted 3 dwarf nectarine trees on the side yard by the kitchen. I hope they produce some good fruit, I love nectarines. Ryan had already dug the holes for all the trees and installed a drip system...so the planting of the trees went pretty quickly. It's so nice to see some green stuff back there...only about 12 trees to go!

I left Logan in the backyard for a few minutes with Ryan on Saturday while he was planting the trees. When I came back I found Logan in one of the tree holes, Ryan told me he had put him there so he wouldn't fall in accidently and get hurt. It looked pretty funny...but it made sense!

Logan has started to develop a sense of rhythm over the past couple of weeks. He starts to bounce up and down whenever he hears music. It is so cute! He has been jabbering more lately, I'm sure he's got some pretty important things to tell me!

Kessiah and Jenessa have been learning about our digestive system in science. They have really enjoyed some of the experiements we have done. We made a model of cells out of plastic baggies, yellow jello and grapes. (plastic bag=cell membrane, jello=cytoplasm, grape=nucleus). We showed what our food looked like in our stomach by putting some water and crackers in a baggie and mashing it up with our hands. Jenessa thought that was really cool, Kessiah thought it was a little gross! I'm sure more fun things are coming up in this unit!

Sienna wins the lottery!!!

OK, so we had a grocery store moment today. As we (yes, I had my 4 children with me at the grocery store!) were walking out of the grocery store this afternoon, Sienna and Jenessa were just a bit ahead of me. As I neared the lottery ticket vending machine I noticed a man kneeling down pulling a lottery ticket out of the machine and saying "well, that's not the one I was going to get, but I guess that's what I've got now!" Sienna was standing right next to the man and the vending machine and Jenessa right next to her informed me that Sienna pushed the button on the machine. So, it all clicked...the man was buying lottery tickets and Sienna pushed the button before he did! Well, I offered to pay him for the ticket but he politely said no...as he tried not to look too annoyed.

Umm, this summer Jenessa was praying so that "Mommy can get control of Sienna." It looks like we better start praying again!

Ryan laughed when I told him about it and thought this experience ranks right up next to the one when Kessiah called 911 when she was about 18 months old.