Being Thankful

Had I thought about this blog post before 10:00 tonight, I'd have taken more pictures to document the day.  As it stands, I figure I'll just toss out some of the random memories I have from today.  Background: my sister Jill and her boyfriend Joe came to have Thanksgiving with Sean, the kids, and me.  Ainsley and Xander dressed for the occasion.  Ainsley's shirt says:  I'm thankful for 1. Mom and Dad 2. Yummy Turkey 3. Football.  Xander's onesie says:  Daddy loves me more than football.  So, yeah, football is integral to our holiday.

Two Green Beans
I made two different green bean dishes today.  Jill and I love the classic green bean casserole.  Joe and Sean do not.  Beyond the green beans, our menu consisted of turkey, Stove Top, yams, mashed potatoes, crescent rolls, cranberry jelly, and gravy. Sean requested another vegetable beyond potato/potato.  Can't say I blame him.  So, I made all-day green beans and green bean casserole.  However, I forgot to pick up the all-day green beans fixins--all of them.  Even the beans. So, I sent Sean to the store to get the fixins while I worked on turkey prep.  When Sean goes to the store, we generally exchange several texts.  His text to me today: "Ah, Thanksgiving. The only day of the year you see this many men shopping for groceries."  Hee! To the right is the meal that my daughter ate.  Or should I say didn't eat.  She was so excited by the visit, all she wanted to do was show Jill and Joe her toys.  See commentary below.

Smurfs and Snoopy
While I was getting the food together, Xander slept in his swing and Ainsley watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  She was particularly drawn to Snoopy.  I tried to get her to check out the Smurfs, but she didn't really care.  She did keep pointing out the "chickens" every time a turkey appeared on screen.

JOE!  JILL!  Come on, guys!
When Ainsley has company (and make no mistake if you come to my house, you're Ainsley's company), her main objective is to boss her company around.  Because she's cute, she gets away with this.  But I find it particularly charming when it works on people who I normally wouldn't expect it to--like Jill's boyfriend Joe.  First, it must be known that Joe is an awesome guy.  He's kind, polite, funny, and, most importantly, loves my sister and treats her well.  Ainsley loves Joe.  When he's around, she'll make him play, read, rough house, whatever she wants.  And Joe's a willing participant.  It was sweet to watch her give him hugs.  It was hilarious to watch her discover his cartilage piercing.  She was fascinated that he had one ear pierced and the other not.  She just kept running her fingers along his ear back and forth from ear to ear.  He let her do this for about 5 minutes.

Mmmm cookies!

When we were decorating our Thanksgiving sugar cookies (turkeys, owls [Ainsley's choice], and acorns), Ainsley sat in Joe's lap...where she proceeded to sneak bites of cookie.  I'm no fool; I knew that she'd get a cookie in the decorating endeavor.  She snuck two for sure.  Also, Ainsley "decorating" cookies entails her dumping the small bowl of sprinkles onto one cookie.  I like to think of it as the Super Cookie.  Joe deemed it necessary that the Super Cookie be eaten right away.

Jill brought Ainsley some books that she'd gotten from a friend.  The most valuable of these books was a magnetic Barbie doll set thingy.  Basically it's modern paper dolls set but in magnet form.  Ainsley deemed this AWESOME.  Notice how she's holding the book away from Xander.  She does not want him near it!  Xander, of course, doesn't care.  Mr. X spent most of this holiday giggling, MMMMMMMmmmming, and nomming.  He had his first bite of non-rice-cereal food: mashed potatoes. He ate two or three small bites, but he wasn't really into them.

After Jill and Joe left to go home, I put Xander into his Thanksgiving p-jammers.  At this point, Ainsley decided it was time to play Tickle Tickle with Xander.  Of course, anytime A gives X attention, he goes C-R-A-Z-Y!  He'll giggle and giggle.  I was able to catch some of it.  Her method was to take her Lorax (Ax) and Seabee and tickle Xander's belly.  He would then laugh hysterically.  It was genius.



The visit really tuckered the kids out.  They had such a good time with Aunt Jill and Uncle Joe.  The playing and the laughing and the tickling and the couple bites of turkey we could convince A to eat should make for a wonderfully restful night.