Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was rather low key for us this year, which I guess is not unusual.  We went to my parents' house for lunch and had a great meal.  And as usual, I had to make the decision between dessert or another serving of dressing with gravy...  mmmmm....

Gravy won.  (but I'm pretty sure I had cake too, later.)

Bennett was quite the little host.  He took it upon himself to invite everyone to the table.  I made his plate and got him situated at the table while everyone else fixed their plates.  Bennett got on his knees in his chair and with big, wide arm gestures and an exaggerated voice said, "Everyone! .... Join the table!"  And then we all had to raise our glasses and "Cheers" each other.  When asked what he was thankful for, Bennett said, "I'm thankful for Mama and Grandmama making desserts."  There's never a dull moment with that boy.

And keeping with the tradition of Thanksgiving... everyone passed out after the meal. 

(not sure what these clasped hands are about...)

 

Poor little Maria was so tired, but we couldn't get her to take a nap!  Jeff tried putting her in the pack n' play, lying down with her, holding her... nothing worked.  So finally she just laid down in the kitchen floor (with nothing but Black Friday ads between her and the hard tile) and passed out.

I didn't get many pictures that day, but here's me and my Cannon man.

Josh's dad is from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  His grandmother and aunt and uncle still live there, so we usually visit with his parents at Christmas time.  Well, the past couple of years Josh hasn't been able to go due to work.  He knew he wouldn't be able to go again this year, so he decided he wanted to make a trip up there after Thanksgiving since he'd have a long weekend. So even though I was sad to miss visiting with Jeff who was up from Florida, we took off Friday morning for Winston-Salem.

We always stay at The Children's Home, which is the old orphanage where Josh's dad was raised.  His dad wasn't an orphan, but his grandfather was and became very involved with the institution.  It holds a very special place in his family's hearts, and over the last 12 years the spot in my heart for it has grown and grown.

Bennett and Cannon with the giant turkey they had at the entrance to the Children's Home:

We wanted to take Bennett to do something fun one day, and we were trying to decide between a place called SciWorks and The Children's Museum of Winston-Salem.  We were leaning towards SciWorks, but Josh's aunt suggested the Children's Museum.  She said there was a lot more for the little kids to do there.  So we took her advice.

Cannon went with Steve and Lynn to have lunch with Mema, and Josh and Bennett and I headed downtown to the museum.  What.  Fun.  We really had a great time.  I don't know how SciWorks would have been, but this place was just right.  Bennett had a ball.

We started out in a room where you could build things.  They had legos, train tracks, huge foam blocks, a make-your-own parachute area, and these little things that were like jenga blocks but they were magnetic.  Kinda cool.

 

 

One of Bennett's parachutes got stuck at the top, so Josh helped him get it down.  :) This video is a little dark, so my apologies if you can't even see what's going on.

Then we went upstairs.  They had a giant beanstalk that you could climb up, but after trying it out for two seconds, Bennett decided he wasn't cool with that.  We took the stairs.  

 

Up there was this awesome little fantastical forest.  

 

 

They had a cow that you could pretend to milk, but Bennett found a spoon in the little kitchen cottage and decided to feed her instead.

 

Next was a room full of giant letters, and each letter looked like something that the letter stood for.  T is for Turtle (Bennett the Turtle wouldn't cooperate with us), J is for Jellyfish, K is for Kangaroo, U is for Urchin...

 

 

I'm realizing what a terrible job I did showing that these things were actually in the shape of the letters.  Oh well.  You'll just have to go there and see it.

There was an area where you could pretend to be a vet,

a pretend grocery store,

 

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!

www.onetruemedia.com

 

and a pretend doughnut factory.

(And if it hadn't been for a terrible attitude right before we left, we were going to visit a real doughnut factory on our way back to the Children's Home, since Winston-Salem is the birthplace of Krispy Kreme.)

But Bennett's absolute favorite (where we spent probably 30 to 45 minutes) was this contraption.  It was a collection of tubes that had air blowing through them and scarves you could feed into them and watch zip around before being spit out and floating to the ground.  It was pretty awesome.

 

Back downstairs, we found these little magnetic doo-hickeys and played with them for a while.

I love this lip.  Working so hard.

Then we were off to the Children's Home again for our last night there.  I really enjoy staying there.  We stay in an old dormitory that has one upper wing, one lower wing, and a common area in between with a kitchen, dining room, and living room with a TV, books, and couches.  We are usually the only ones there, so this common area becomes our living area.  It's just fun being there with your family.  I've only been around it, like I said before, for about 12 years, but I just feel so at home there. I love it.

As Josh and I gathered our things and loaded the car to get ready to leave, Steve and Lynn took the boys up to the farm to see the animals (the Children's Home was pretty much self-sufficient).

 

We loaded up and headed to Mema's complex to eat breakfast with her and Josh's aunt and uncle.

After breakfast, Mema gave Bennett and Cannon turns riding on her walker.  This became the kids' favorite activity last year at Christmas.  And Mema loves it.  She'll push them around until we make them stop.

We so enjoyed seeing everyone.  I know Josh was really glad to have gone after not being there for the past couple of years.  It was a great visit.

Cannon didn't even make it out of Mema's complex before passing out, and Bennett joined him not long after.  :)

A Couple of Bennett Funnies

My goodness, do I have other things I need to be doing right now.  But I HAVE to make myself sit down and write some of this stuff down.  I really, really want to post about our trip to Winston-Salem after Thanksgiving, but I really don't have the time to do that tonight.  I have cakes to make for this weekend!

But I have to share a couple of Bennett funnies.  And these may not come across as funny here as they do coming out of his little mouth, with his little inflections.  But I'll share anyway.

Bennett's class has apparently been singing The Hokey Pokey lately.  He was singing it last night, and I was helping him remember what body parts to 'put in' and 'put out.'  We did his right arm, his left arm, his right leg, his left leg, his head... and with each body part he got more and more tickled.  After his head, he said, "You put your bottom in, you put your bottom out, you put your bottom in and you shake it all about..." and he shook his little rear at me.  I kind of giggled with him, and then he started a new line.  "You put your tee-tee in, you put your tee-tee out..." I immediately said, "No, no, no Bennett.  You don't talk about your private parts like that."

His response:  "But Mama, I wasn't talking about my private parts, I was singing about them."

His class has also obviously been singing Christmas songs.  He's been singing Jingle Bells and Santa  Claus is Coming to Town for the past week.  Tonight he was singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town and said, "You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why..." and then said, "Daddy, this is how we pout" and made a super pouty face and crossed his arms in front of him.  Josh said, "Yep, that's how you pout.  But it's not good to pout, is it Bennett?"  Bennett said, "No sir."  And then in a very chipper voice added, "But I don't pout ... I just cry!"

Stinker.

No, he hasn't gotten glasses.  Pop loaned them to him to accompany the Steve Urkel pajama pants he had going on.

All Because Two People Fell in Love

Last weekend we went out to Alabama to celebrate my grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary. It was so nice to get together with everyone and to look around and see what these two people had created. The sign on the guest book table read, "All Because Two People Fell In Love."

 

My grandparents, Posey and Edna McLeod, were married in November of 1941. They had seven children, one of which is my dad.

 

I'm not one to use the word "blessed" very often, but how very blessed are they that all nine of them are still alive and healthy?  I think it's pretty awesome. 

Those seven children gave them a total of fifteen grandchildren, and we grandchildren have given them 34 great-grandchildren so far, and they're still coming (two of them with an ETA of January). That's a lot of people... all because two people fell in love. :)

It was a very nice reception.  The turnout was great, with over 100 people in attendance.  My mom and aunts made some great food (mmm... chicken ball...), and they asked me to make a cake.  I was very happy to make this cake for the celebration:

Here's our crew with my parents and grandparents,

 

and here's Cannon giving Grandmother a high-five (that's his new favorite thing to do):

I loved this table they had set up with all the old and new pictures of everyone.

The seven children.  Can you tell which one is my Daddy?

And I've always loved this one too.  All four of the McLeod men served in the military at one point or another.  Grandaddy (top left) was in WWII, Roy (bottom right) was in the Korean War, and Daddy (bottom left) and Tommy (top right) were in the Vietnam War.  Happy Veterans Day to all of them, by the way!

It was a very nice gathering; I really enjoyed it.  And what a beautiful day for it.  After the party I was helping clean up while Josh took the boys out to the playground.  I took a break at one point and walked outside to check on them.  I stepped out the back door and had to stop for just a minute.  It was sunset, and a gorgeous one at that; the air was clean and crisp; I was looking at several gorgeous trees in front of me full of vibrant fall leaves; I looked to my left and saw my dad and two of his sisters walking into the distance, headed to look at my grandparents' future grave site across the street; I knew that my husband and two sons were around the corner, all happy, healthy, and full of love.  

I was so happy and so sad at the same time.  Happy, because even though it seems unmanageable and crazy at times, what an incredible stage of life I am in right now.  So, so many moments to cherish and try to hold onto forever.  And sad, because 1) no matter how hard I try to hold onto these moments, they are going to pass faster than I want them to, and 2) it's heartbreaking that some people can't enjoy such a peaceful, reassuring moment like that.

Oh, life.

(didn't mean to make this post about me... sorry)

Grandmother and Granddaddy, thank you for falling in love 70 years ago and creating such a big, beautiful family.  I am so proud to be a part of it, and can only hope to have the same with Josh decades from now.

Playin' in the Leaves

Just a quick one of our boys enjoying the leaves. :)

Halloween 2011

A year ago, I saw a photo of what a friend of a friend did for her sons' Halloween costumes and I knew then that I wanted to do that for Bennett and Cannon.  The older brother was the fireman, and the younger one was the fire.

Thankfully, Bennett was all for being a fireman (but I have already been told that next year he's going to be a dinosaur).  So, I bought Bennett's costume and got to work making Cannon's fire costume and smoke hat.  It turned out really cute, but I think I got a little carried away with the smoke hat.  It wound up being rather large. 

I wasn't able to get a good photo because the reflective strips on Bennett's jacket made flash photos turn out terrible, but if I turned the flash off, any slight move turned into a blur.  Like this:

Oh well.

Once we got all dressed up, we went to Sam's Club.  I had been there earlier in the day, and the cashier told me they were doing trick-or-treating in the store that evening if I wanted to bring the boys back.  So I did.  We just went around to each department and trick-or-treated.  We (Cannon) definitely got lots of looks and laughs.  On our way out, Bennett spotted a fire and ran to the rescue!

Thank goodness he was there.  That could've been bad.

Here's a couple more photos I made in an attempt to get a good one.

You'll have to pardon that big ol' belly in that last picture.  It's a bit unavoidable these days.  :)

I should have made the smoke hat before the day-of, because it needed more time to set.  I used loose batting and spray adhesive to make it all stick together, and it just didn't stay together very well.  By the end of the night, Cannon had chunks of "smoke" hanging down his back.  I'm sure we left a nice little trail of gray batting around the neighborhood.  It seemed like it was going to stay together, but once he got it on and started walking around, that puff of smoke was shaking around on that little head of his and didn't stand a chance.

We had a good time.  Mama and Daddy came over and while Josh made beer cheese soup and homemade sourdough bread (that was delicious), Mama passed out candy on our front porch while Daddy and I took the boys around the neighborhood to trick-or-treat.