Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

We had an unpleasant surprise - Grady got the stomach flu Wednesday night! He ended up feeling better by lunch but still didn't eat much.

Stephen's parents arrived Thursday afternoon while I was in mid-meal preparation. Patti brought a bunch of sides and I did the turkey, dressing and both potatoes. The Oeders, family friends who live nearby, were unexpectedly unable to join us so we had enough food to feed the masses!

I got a fresh turkey from the local farm and reserved a 19 pound turkey since I wanted to be sure to have leftovers. Well, I guess they were all really big this year and I ended up bringing home a 21 pounder!! We ate it all weekend, gave some to the Oeders, made turkey soup and just put some leftovers into the freezer!

We had a great time with the Arnolds: hit the mall early Friday morning, cut down our own Christmas tree Friday afternoon and went downtown to the Macy's Pittsburgh Thanksgiving Day Parade on Saturday morning. I'll post pictures of that later. They babysat for us Saturday night so we could go downtown and see Spamalot. It was excellent!!

The rest of the story is that Patti ended up with the stomach flu Saturday night, so she was out of commission on Sunday! So sad! We ended up going back to the Science museum with out them just to give the Arnolds some space. I've got some good pics I'll post later.

It was the first day of deer hunting today so the children had the day off of school. Of course! We actually had a very pleasant day and the children enjoyed watching White Christmas for the second time in two days. Gotta love Christmas movies!

Pryor sings the ABCs

Need I say more?

Carnegie Science Center

We went to the Carnegie Science Center on Sunday after church and since they didn't have Sunday school we were able to get downtown just before 11 AM.

It was just FABULOUS!!! The children hadn't ever been to a nice science museum. We saw three floors and didn't even visit the top floor where they have the water table and other typical children's museum exhibits nor did we see the naval submarine docked outside.

We saw the Sky Above Mister Rogers' Neighborhood show at the digital dome theater. They have an aquarium area and a model railroad exhibit. Of course Grady loved the K'Nex exhibit - yes, they really have a k'nex exhibit!

We saw the Meringue Madness show at the test kitchen. Alice and Grady raised their hands and particpated in the show - see the pictures below. Of course, my favorite part was the sample at the end!

Breaking News, Part Two

The tooth fairy has been very busy here recently!

His smile looks so different! It's crazy! He is so excited. He seemed surprised that the tooth fairy brought the same amount that she had for the first three! ($2.00 - coin dollars)

Breaking News

Breaking news!! The other tooth that was not quite as loose this weekend, came out today!

Grady - in an act of love I have never seen in him before - kept the lost tooth a secret. He lost it at Powered Up - a church program/dinner on Thursday nights. Stephen went to pick them up - and they both said they had a secret they would tell when they got home. They both kept the secret the entire fifteen minutes.

When they got home, Grady told us - and the fact he had saved it till home made me cloud up! So precious!

Playdate

We invited some friends to come over and play yesterday afternoon and had a great time!

Grady asked Jack, a little boy from his class. Jack liked legos but had never heard of k'nex. Grady was more than happy to inform him. I'm not sure how many words the little boy spoke the whole time he was here.

Alice invited Michelle R. (not to be confused with Michelle G., twin sister to Rachel, both of whom we have played with before) to come over. Her Mom, who is from Germany, also brought her 5th grade daughter and her 3 (almost 4) year old son. Pryor played with Nicklaus and the two got along well.

After a while, we all played Scene It! Disney version - the DVD video clip/board game. The children and I had been playing it earlier in the week. I'm embarrassed to say that my children kept on answering for the other children but I think everyone had a good time.

Home Movies

Grady was pushing Pryor in a big container. He wanted me to film him.

Then Alice wanted a turn. In this second video, you can almost hear what Pryor is saying, "Hello, Baseball Game!" He was actually holding Grady's basketball game which is similar to Grady's baseball game. Pryor was talking into it like a phone. He is really becoming a chatty chad!

I can't believe that Grady's front tooth has still not come out! When he wiggled his tooth on this video, I thought for sure it was coming out that night. Here we are two days later and it still is in!