November 2008 Goings On

Miscellaneous
So its mid-November and time to wrap up the "fall" and move on to "winter"! The weather has suddenly turned colder (jackets required, gloves and hats for the kids) and we are planning our Thanksgiving Day activities. We're probably going to have some friends over for a low-key breakfast and to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, then settle in for a day of cooking in anticipation of hosting the afternoon dinner. All the traditional fare is being planned...turkey, gravy, sweet potatos, corn pudding, yummy desserts...and lots of left overs for hash during the weekend!

In other recent events...M went on her first official playdate today and I can't wait to hear how it went. She had her preschool friend R over a few weeks ago and now its her turn to go to R's house. She has been so excited! I am sure this adventure will be good for a story or two! D has expressed an interest in writing in cursive so we have been having some fun working on that; where he comes up with these ideas I will never know. He asked if he could write in cursive at school and I told him his teacher probably wants him to keep writing in "regular" for a while yet. He seemed unconvinced.

Birthdays
No pictures to post yet (long story, the moral of which is I want to get a new digital camera and join the 21st century...any advice on good cameras that lend themselves to easy uploads of pictures would be welcome) but we had M's birthday party at the house last month and she had a blast. If you have not received your thank you card yet, hang in there...we're still working on them. D had his party at the movie theatre last weekend and we saw Madagascar II. D got several Lego sets and of course has put them all together and taken them apart several times by now. He's quite the little engineer and its amazing how he will sit there for hours following those step-by-step instructions.

Christmas
I have started my shopping already which is a mixed blessing...start too early and you end up spending more and buying more than you wanted to because you keep seeing neat things...start too late and you are scrambling to find just the right stuff for each person. Over the Thanksgiving weekend I hope to get secret santa lists for the extended family so we can all start working on those gifts.

Baby Update
Went in for our regular appointment this week and everything looks good. Almost 30 weeks here...my doctor has indicated that she would like to induce me at 39 weeks (Friday Jan 23) if the baby does not come before then. The rationale is something along the lines of not letting the baby get too big (D was 9 pounds, M 8 pounds 13 ounces, and subsequent babies tend to be bigger than their older siblings), the speed at which M was born (less than 4 hours from start to finish) which has her somewhat concerned that this one could just flying out with little warning. J is all in favor; I am unconvinced at this point but we'll see how I feel in 9 weeks. We have not started to get any of the baby things out yet but I am thinking about getting started, so that's something. I am having a hard time finding Ivory Snow soap powder at stores up here and that's what I insist on using for the baby's things so until I find a retail distributor I can't do any of the washing anyway. I have established that there are only a few things that we need to buy for Baby, as s/he will mostly have hand-me-downs from D and M...which is just fine by me, I loved their little clothes!

D's Journal Entry about our Trip

So D. has been journaling at home and at school and he wrote this entry about our trip last weekend back East. The translation is as follows: I love my sister and my mom and my dad. We went to Washington DC on November 1, 2008 and they did a Halloween Party. And we went to my Aunts and my Uncles. We had a great time. November 4, 2008.

Cousins

We spent this past weekend with the East Coast cousins. The kids had a blast and we enjoyed out last trip to DC before Baby. More pictures to come, but here are a few of all the cousins from our JC Penny photo shoot. Aren't they something?