Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a wonderful day, spent with family and friends.

Our dinner was wonderful and I'm very thankful for my family. My parents divorced 25 years ago and I am very thankful that I was able to have both my parents and in this case my Dad's extended family along with my MIL all sitting down together for a nice, peaceful and fun Thanksgiving dinner. It's nice to be related to adults.

We had my grandfather who is 93 years old (I think) who still bowls every week and drives. He lives with one of my cousins who unfortunately had to work and wasn't able to be here. My Mom and step Dad and my Dad and step Mom and Brad's mom. My Dad's brother Gary and his wife Carol, his sister Marla and her husband Keith along with their two high school age kids; Sarah and Kevin. And my sister and her husband and my two wonderful nieces along with their Colombian born au pair, Angelica. My sister's girls and my boys ran around like crazy people as they often do and totally and dramatically destroyed my relatively straight bedroom. The boys did a reasonable job cleaning it though so it ended up being okay.

Teddy was in a good mood and overall very lovely and helpful all day long. It's so nice when I get glimpses of my wonderful boy. (another thing to be thankful for this year)

Camela

I'm sensing a theme

We went to some parent teacher conferences today for Teddy; four to be exact. One was band and we learned from him that Teddy is not as organized as he could be and often forgets his sticks and music book - Brad and I were shocked speechless... Our Teddy!!? Not organized? No. Not prepared? It can't be. Okay I'm done with band, now for the other classes.

Challenge Reading: Teddy is a really great kid, I really like him but he's consistently rushing through his classwork to get to whatever book he's reading instead of working more carefully on what he should be working on. He's getting a B but should easily be getting an A in my class. He's just not putting forth his best effort or really much effort as all. He's really smart and is basically skating by on smarts alone. With just a little bit of effort he'd have an A.

English: Teddy's a good kid; funny. He really rushes though his work during class, doing the bare minimum so he can pull out a book to read. Uh, he, um, well, he's really not putting forth much effort in here. He's getting a B but with just a tiny bit of effort, really just using the class time for what it's for; reviewing his work alone and with peers, he'd be getting an A. He is very smart and really should have a high A in here.

Social Studies: (very matter of fact) Teddy is getting an B. The place he could really bring up his grade would be in tests and quizzes, well except the county assessment. He's one of only 3 kids to have gotten 100% on the multiple choice part of the test and he got a perfect score on one of the written sections and only 2 points off of the other, so he did really well on that. He's really smart but he usually rushes through his classwork so he can pull out a book to read. Though even with that sometimes I'll call on him after he's been clearly reading for a while; head down, clearly engrossed in his book. I'll call on him to sort of point it out to him that he needs to be paying attention and he always gets the right answer so it's hard for me to even say anything about it. (Brad suggested she take the book away from him as soon as she sees it). He is really smart and is skating by on it. He's not putting forth any effort in here and with just a little effort on his part; even a quick review of the material before a test, he'd be getting an A.

Camela

Thanksgiving countdown - 3 days to go

On today's Thanksgiving agenda is;

- Grocery shopping for all the supplies. Brad did this earlier today and woo hoo, we have most of what we need - CHECK

- making the cornbread for the new cornbread stuffing recipe that I am going to make this year. It's a whim but man did it look good when I saw Michael Symon make it on Food Network. I'm not going so crazy as to make it from scratch or anything crazy like that, but I'm making the Jiffy Brand that several people I know like. I've made a part of what I need because Brad totally ignored the list I gave him and decided I said I needed 2 cups of cornbread instead of the 8 I actually need (he's at the store again right now).

- moving the tables around. I've decided to put several tables end to end and have one long table for the 21-22 people we have coming and I'm going to put it starting in the dining room and crossing the foyer and ending in the living room. I'll put a sign on the front door that tells people to come in through our garage - we're a casual bunch so that doesn't bother me at all. (As an aside to the number of people - we knew we were having 16 or 17 people coming (not sure about my BIL's mom yet) but hadn't heard from either my dad & step mom OR my mom and step dad. I think it's kind of funny that I managed to get answers from everyone except my parents. But today we learned that they are coming as well which is absolutely wonderful, I'm thrilled everyone can make it.)

So the table move though is going to require quite a bit of rearranging. First we need to move the drum set (in the LR also known as the music room) to the basement. I'm afraid I'm going to have to move the Xmas tree I already assembled in the LR as well and I'm not yet sure where it's going to go. Then the kitchen table moves to the dining room and the round "puzzle" table goes to the kitchen for our meals till after thanksgiving. Then the fold out dining room table from the sun room moves to the living room and the leaves for it need to be brought up from the basement. (I have this super cool folding table that has 2 leaves and expands to seat 10 I think, certainly 8. But without the leaves you push it together to card table size and then the top folds back onto itself and ends up half the size of a card table and has worked as a hall or foyer table in the various places we've lived for many years.

The best part about this table arrangement is that I can totally get everything set up now, or maybe tomorrow and it'll be out of the main traffic patter of our normal lives - so it won't bother our normal routine. And we'll then be able to use the round puzzle table as a serving table and people can fill their plates in the kitchen and then bring it to the table. I think it's a stroke of brilliance.

On tomorrow's agenda - making the stock for the stuffing, finding the table cloths, setting the table.

Camela

A couple of things

- I was struggling for a blog post tonight and Brad said I should write... "My husband's home, my husband's home" and let that be it. I almost went with that.

- When Teddy got home he was delightful and I saw a glimpse of my wonderful sweet kid - the one I know still hides inside his current surly exterior..... for about 10 minutes and then he ripped the foam finger Jackson was playing with and made Jack cry. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

- While cutting in around the baseboards today Bandit stood roughly three feet from me and barked and barked and barked and barked. I asked Jackson to throw a ball for him or something and he refused. I told him I was going to get rid of the dog if he didn't help me out (he knows full well I want to get rid of the dog but won't as long as the kids really, really don't want us to) and so he said - ... "weeeeell if you put it that way, I'd be happy to"

Okay, I'm all tapped out now.
Camela

My fun day with Jackson

It started first thing this morning - well if you don't count the little battle of wills that went on getting him into the shower first - and we went to his favorite restaurant Bob Evans for breakfast where he just about died and went to heaven with the ability to dip his french toast into whipped cream.

We headed from there downtown while he continued to quiz me with his Wimpy kid book questions to the aquarium. I tried and tried to get some nice pictures of him at these places but my camera shy little boy made that darn near impossible. We started almost immediately in the 4D Polar Express experience. It was fantastic though I have no idea what it has to do with aquatic things you expect to find in an aquarium!!! If you've not seen a 4D movie they are great fun; in addition to the 3D thing going on with the glasses you get poked in the back when the big pole comes towards you and water squirts you in the face if someone on screen sneezes and you smell chocolate if someone's drinking hot chocolate - so fun. The whole theater was just having fits of laughter (well except the really little kids who were screaming in terror but they were quickly removed so all was well).

We moved from there and explored "Australia" which Jackson particularly loved - lots of cool snakes and lizards in addition to all the fish. Then we went into the normal aquarium exhibits and saw lots of sharks and a big huge turtle we named Hugh to make it easier for us to talk about him. You can see the main tank from a lot of different places so we were always tracking Hugh. (as a side note: my dad can't say Hugh - he can't say the H sound when it's followed by a U sound so it comes out as "you" - it always makes me laugh. He can say "H" and "YOU" but not "HUGH" - he clearly didn't watch enough Sesame Street).

Once the Dolphin show was over we hit the souvenir shop and picked up Bailey (named after one of the dolphins) he's a monkey with a National Aquarium sweatshirt on.. (of course he is). Jackson was done with the fish and wanted desperately to paint pottery which was definitely on the weekend agenda, though I was thinking we'd do it on Sunday. But no, we headed over there and he made two penguins one in Steelers' colors with a 7 on the back named Ben and one with Redskins' colors with number 17 on the back named Jason - he did a great job and I totally forgot to take any pictures.

Finally done with the pottery (my little vase which will be a gravy boat of sorts took much longer than Jack's things) Jackson begged me to go back to Bob Evans for a repeat of his breakfast. He wore me down and back we went. Throughout the day I tried to take pictures of Jackson but he thwarted me at every turn. I caught him once, and finally at the end I convinced him to pose with his new friend Bailey. Here are some pictures of our day.

I love this kissy fish but I swear I've seen him before - can someone tell me where. I'm thinking he's maybe the narrator of a Disney cartoon my kids used to watch or something like that.

This is Hugh; our friend the turtle - or probably more correctly a tortoise (oh and he only has 3 fins/feet so I'm glad he's found a home here.)

A dolphin mid-air. I tried to get a lot of those but only managed to get a few

Another midair dolphin

A dolphin playing with a ball


And now for many of my pictures of Jackson for the day!

Jackson lying on a huge anchor in the Inner Harbor

As much of his face as he was willing to share with me

Jackson with the lizard lady

Jackson in the 4D movie

Jackson with a dolphin swimming by

I caught him - woo hoo!!!

Jackson at Bob Evans the second time

Finally my baby granted me with a nice picture with his new buddy Bailey.

A few things

Teddy and Brad are in VA. Teddy called me from a Japanese restaurant where he is clearly feeling very grown up; away with his dad. They went for a swim, watched a bit of TV and then headed out to eat. Tomorrow they're going to the comic book convention and I'm sure they're both very excited about it.

Jackson and I started our weekend at the book fair where he chose a few a few books and a really cool, very large, pen (nearly 2 feet long) that has a rubber replica of a foam finger - I really like it. Then we went to Uno's and had a lovely time as he quizzed me with the Wimpy Kid Do it Yourself book. He humored me by going into Target that was right next to Uno's. I'm on the lookout for a few more snowmen for a little collection I'm putting together on top of a cabinet and have been wanting to buy a small tree for the kitchen to hang all the kids hand made ornaments in one place, so I knew they might have something that I liked for that too.

In the tree section I found this small lighted tree that is already in a pot and I thought 2 of them would look great on the front porch so I looked closer and discovered they were on sale and came in a package of 2 for $40 - can you say sold. Then I looked for the tree for my kitchen and I narrowed it down to a short fat little tree that was really cute and a tall thin tree that was also wonderful. I had originally been looking for a short tree, but decided on the taller one (it's only 7.5 feet which is a normal size, but in the 11' high kitchen it'll look pretty small so that's still good). I picked it because of how narrow it is. Its overall footprint is just not that big and I think that'll be perfect for where I want to put it.

Brad will probably find out that I bought three more trees by reading this blog post while he's away (Hi honey) - and he'll shake his head and think what am I going to do with her (or at least that's what I hope he thinks). I'm hoping to have them put together and roughly in place, if not decorated before Brad gets home. (My family coming for Thanksgiving are going to think I'm confused about which holiday is happening since I believe we'll have 6 trees up in the house - though the two little ones will eventually go outside and the big, live one won't be bought until after thanksgiving).

Tomorrow Jack and I are heading to the aquarium and maybe a movie too, though he doesn't know about that possibility at the moment.

Camela

Some more random things

My new nativity set

I've been wanting a new nativity scene for quite some time. Actually it's only the figures that I wanted to replace because I like my manger. So this year I decided to actually find one and it took approximately half an hour and someone else's idea.

I was IMing with my friend Camille and surfing the web for choices and she so nonchalantly through out there - this is the one I want, I just haven't gotten around to getting it and she sent me the link to the Willow tree nativity set.

Well and ... I loved it. But of course my first reaction was I can't have the same one as her - I don't want to steal her idea. And certainly there have to be others out there that I'd like just as much, right?

And I'd need to stop using my manger because it wouldn't fit with these figures, so I kept looking, but I kept coming back to it. I especially liked how Mary is holding Jesus, I don't think I've seen that before; he's always nestled in with some hay, which is certainly fine but I just loved the love of the Jesus in her arms. I also loved, loved, loved the stars; I have a real thing for stars. And well then there's the camel. My name is Camela so it's not surprising that I have a warm place in my heart for camels (which, by the way, is what my college roommate called me; Camels)

I narrowed it down to a few and showed them all to Brad and he didn't hesitate when he saw it - "That's the one. It's so you... the whole sun and the moon and the stars thing, that's it!" and he walked away. (I say to the kids - I love you more than the sun and the moon and the stars in the sky - which is what my mom used to say to me).

Anyway, it came today!!! I'm so excited. I've set it up and I love it.

Go Green compressed bamboo towels


The nativity set shipped from a place called ThinkBamboo and it comes with a 10 pack of Go Green compressed bamboo towels. I've got no idea why. Maybe I should use the towels to keep the nativity set clean. Maybe they're just so jazzed about how teeny tiny they can pack the towels they want me to be wowed by it too? I have no idea, but I will say they do manage to package them very, very small and the towel itself is a good sized towel that I'm sure I could poke my finger threw if I so desired. The kids thought they were cool, so that's something.



My CPA calculator

In 1995 I passed the three day CPA test and got to put cute little letters after my name (which I never do). It took me 6 months to accomplish this, but I got it done nonetheless. For a part of the test you are allowed to use a basic calculator that they provide. It just has the very basic of functions but we were all thrilled to have it. It's more than 14 years later and darn if that thing doesn't still work. It's never had its battery changed, in fact it's screwed shut with no intention of it ever being opened. I just think it's amazing that it still works. A little aside about calculators... I was an economics, accounting and finance major where math was used in varying degrees in most of my classes and I was not allowed to use a calculator until my senior year in college, before that there were often pages worth of calculations to figure out an answer. And now today, my 11 year old son in 6th grade GT math was asked to buy this seriously intense scientific calculator for school. We won't let him use it at home, which used to really piss him off.


Speaking of 11 year olds

He was so in a mood tonight. So darn ornery it was difficult to speak civilly to him. He borrowed a book from the library but it's a bit different; it's called a book swap (I may have already mentioned that in an earlier post) and he's supposed to go to a website and talk about where he is and what book it is and some other things and then pass it on to someone else who will do the same thing once they've read it. Brad found the book on the floor in the corner near the bathroom.
B: Ted what's the deal with this book
T: it's a book (so full of attitude)
B: are you done with it?
T: yes (he didn't say but you could certainly hear in his tone "you idiot")
B: don't you need to do something with it?
T: No, I'm done (same tone)
B: it's a book swap book you need to do the stuff it says to do
T: (yelling from upstairs) OPEN THE FRONT COVER. READ WHAT IT SAYS. DO WHAT IT SAYS
Me to Brad: Beat him
B: TED, GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW
They go back and forth for a minute until Ted reluctantly apologizes and heads upstairs book in hand
T: I'm just going to put it on my bookshelf (the tone was back)
me: beat him


Then later he is packing for his trip with Brad this weekend which OMG has been one stupid ordeal after another and finally - finally - I'm able to get him up to bed. But right before he's going to get in bed he runs out of the room and down the stairs while I take calming deep breaths to keep myself from doing something I'll regret (at some point). He runs back (after a reminder) with my old MP3 player which I never fully understood how to use.
T: Mom, teach me how this works.
M: I'm not sure I know
T: it's yours and you don't know? (please hear the mocking tone there)
M: I'm sure I could figure it out, but I'm not going to try, it's way past your bedtime and you're going to bed right now.
T: I just put fresh batteries in it
M: that's good to know
T: I can't find my sansa shaker, I need music this weekend
M: that's a darn shame you didn't think of this before right now. (I got up to leave)
T: you've totally ruined my life

Camela