Recently...

I have several things I want to share with you today.
Every year, instead of giving gifts to each other at Christmas, my family does a gift exchange at Thanksgiving. We call it Family Day. I thought I made a point to take a picture of each of the girls with a gift but apparently, in all the chaos, I forgot to take one of Claire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't make as much food this year as a couple of years ago, but I did make two pumpkin pies.

(P.S. This is the best pie crust recipe I've ever used.)

 

 

 

Eily made a Christmas list this year. It's hilarious. Click on the picture to enlarge it so you can read her gift ideas. I'm thinking I may borrow some of them for my list.

                           During all the water problems the other day, Aunt Sarah came and got Eily and Claire and took them to her house. Apparently she's updated her dress up supplies.

 

I've had some "proud/hooray/we've improved/I can see a difference" moments lately.

When we started the school year, Elaina's handwriting was horrible and she wrote almost all of her letters incorrectly. She'd start at the bottom or circle around the wrong direction. This paper is from her spelling test this morning. All letters were written neatly and correctly the first time and she made a 100% on her test!! Go Elaina!

Claire made her own bed this morning. It's looks perfect.

 

Elaina made her own bed this morning. It looks perfect.

Their housekeeping skills are greatly improving.

Hooray for Mama's helpers!

He's pretty special and I like him.

Back to normal

What is normal in our home? I'm not sure. But I'm going to be thinking about that and contemplating and analyzing until I come up with what I think the answer should be.  I'll get back to you on that one.

We had a great Thanksgiving and as soon as I get the cord back from Grandma's house I will upload pictures and give you all a splendiferous post to read.  How was your Thanksgiving? What did you do? Where did you go? What was your favorite food item from the Main Meal? Did you give your closet a makeover? I did and it was wonderful. Cleansing. This is what I got rid of and will no longer be taking up room in my closet.

Isn't that amazing?  Tomorrow I am going to price it all and pack it away until yard sale weather comes 'round again. I bet I make a pretty penny. (Which in yard sale terms is about $100.)



Could someone please tell me where spell check is in Beta?

I just got through cooking...

*big breath*
2 pans of dinner rolls, 1 pineapple upside-down cake, 2 blueberry pies, 1 cherry pie, 2 pumpkin pies, 2 casserole dishes of mashed potatoes, about 3 dozen oatmeal-raisin crisps and 1 pumpkin cheesecake.

I really want to take a nap. I feel full.