Turkey Week!

Thanksgiving Dinner #1.  We were lucky to be able to go to Monticello for an extended family dinner the weekend before Thanksgiving.  Aunt Elizabeth made a fabulous meal, as always, and the kids enjoyed a day of uninterrupted cousin time.  The girls look forward to this dinner every year.  They have second cousins coming out of their ears and they always write and perform a musical play together for the adults after we eat.

Journey and Bethany are best buds.  We got to see Journey's basketball game before the party.  She is a beast.  I think she made 20 out of 32 points for the game.  Later that night, they had a sleepover and I could hardly get Bethany to get in the car to come home the next day.

 Here are the girls with all nine pies right before driving to Grandma's for Thanksgving dinner #2.  The girls each got to choose a pie that they wanted to make with me.  Bethany chose chocolate mint cream.  Amber chose peach.  And Miranda chose lemon meringue.  They were all sinfully good.

And here is the dessert table at Grandma's.  Oh yes!  We take our Thanksgiving desserts quite seriously.

Chad at his third Thanksgiving meal (actually a basketball dinner).  The La Cueva Freshmen have team "bonding" dinners almost every weekend until the end of the season.  Let's hope they get very "bonded" and that the familiarity will translate into great teamwork on the court. :)  We all were pretty excited that Chad made the team.  All of us, that is, except for the girls who are mad that Chad doesn't get to go to preseason baseball training anymore (some weird NM high school sports rule - whatever!) when they had been having a great time hanging out with the Calvert twins when we went to watch.  Oh well!  Basketball season is only 3 1/2 months, ladies.  Hang tight!

Chad's New Suit

Boy, I hope this doesn't have to be dry-cleaned.

This is what happens when your kids get bored on Sunday afternoon part 2!

Oh Boy!

This is what happens when your kids get bored on Sunday afternoon!

The first words I uttered once I regained the power of speech were, "That had better not be in Sharpie!"  It's not.

All Spooked Out!

Everybody knows I love Halloween.  I love ding-dong ditching treats and being ding-dong ditched.  I love making marshmallow eyeballs, mummy dogs and graveyard cakes. I love the costumes, the parades and the carnivals.  I love trick-or-treating.  And Goodness knows I love the candy!  But, I have to say that I am pooped, People.  We celebrated all weekend long.  We had school parties on Friday and we had trunk-or-treats/carnivals on Friday and Saturday night.  And that doesn't even take into account the actual trick-or-treating.  And now I am ready to put away the candy, throw away the jack-o-lanterns and take down the spider webs until next year.  I think I'd like to sleep until it's time to make Thanksgiving pies.   Above is Miranda at her class party with the coolest cupcakes ever.

Here are Morticia Adams, the big bad wolf,  the vampiress and Colin the dragon trick-or-treating at Great Grandma Woods's house.  We colored Miranda's and Bethany's hair black for one night but quickly decided it wasn't worth the mess.

Three of the cutest Halloween goblins in town ready to head to party #3 on Saturday night.  Aunt Emily did their makeup and they were quite dazzling.  Sadly, I have no pictures of the party poopers, I mean boys, in their costumes, because of course they refused to wear any.

And now that the week of fright is at last over, it's time to move onto a week that is truly scary, haunted by election results and La Cueva Basketball tryouts.  Spooky!