Wow.  I never appreciated how truly exhausting Thanksgiving is until this year!  My husband's family (parents, brother and future sis-in-law) all came to stay with us, and I had the whole week off school, so I was in total Thanksgiving Mode.  This meant I made no less than 7 grocery store trips, cleaned and did a ton of cooking!  Let me first say that I really do enjoy all of this, especially when I can do everything while the kids are at daycare!  I hope that does not make me a terrible Mom, but having three kids at home while trying to do any of this would be about as productive as trying to shop and cook alone in a body cast. 
    So, I set to work in the 6 hours before the family arrived on Wednesday so I could have less to do on actual Thanksgiving day.  I made spinach dip, hummus, 2 batches of pumkin bars (1 to give away to the kids' teachers), lasagne, peeled and diced about 8 lbs of potatoes, began brining our turkey, cooked sweet potatoes for Wed. night dinner, and chopped all the root veggies for a dish for Thursday (potatoes, turnups, rutabaga, carrots, squash).  And, besides 2 lessons I learned, it was pretty crisis free. 
     Two Lessons Learned:  Do not chop potatoes ahead of time because they turn brown.  Mashed potatoes will taste the same, but will be ugly.  And, do not put your potato peels down the drain as it will certainly clog and create a disgusting mess that your husband will have to whip out his mad plumbing skills and save the day and probably a couple hundred dollars.  Also, if you look on the internet it seems as all of this is common knowledge and I apparently missed the news flash.  
     The brined turkey was awesome and everything was as it should be for Thanksgiving dinner.  My mother-in-law made stuffing and pie, and my brother-in-law and fiance made some very tasty brussel sprout chips.  We have much to be thankful for, but also remember those who have not had such a smooth holiday.  One of my co-workers lost her son-in-law on Thanksgiving day, my cousin lost her grandmother a few days before, we found out our good friends' newborn daughter had to have emergency surgery for a life-threatening heart condition (she survived), I remembered by cousin who died unexpectedly eleven years ago around this holiday and my great uncle who died a year ago.  But, even with a little bit of a dark cloud around the day, I was thankful to be with family and friends, have healthy children, a job, a home, and food on our table.  We are truly blessed. 

     There are few moments greater than when you finally realize that your baby is actually sleeping through the night!!  What exactly does sleeping through the night mean, you ask??  If you are like me, you have scoured books and the internet trying to find out when a baby should 'sleep through the night', and you have discovered every answer you could possibly want. 
     When Punky was just 4 months old her Doctor said she should not be waking up in the middle of the night for a bottle, yet she was waking up once or twice, and was so hungry that I could actually hear her stomach growling.  Part of my solution for that was to start feeding her more solids, but I also realized that she was falling asleep around 6pm, so when she was waking up at 11pm or midnight, she was sleeping for 6 straight hours.  And, if you check any number of baby websites, they will tell you that sleeping 6 straight hours constitutes 'sleeping through the night'.  But, still, when Mom and Dad are going to sleep at 10pm or later, then waking up at midnight and then again at 5am to feed the baby, it seems the complete opposite of sleeping through the night. 
    And all that 'sleeping through the night' causes extreme exhaustion in parents which leads to lower patience with the other offspring, eyes lugging around dark bags and probably sporting some redness, and possibilities of hallucinations and/or general insanity.  It's probably a miracle that more of these sleep-deprived parents aren't accused of being addicted to drugs.  If you've been there or are there right now you know exactly what I'm talking about.  If you are heading in that direction, beware!
     Anyway, our little Punky is 8 months old and recently started to do what I consider 'sleeping through the night'.  When I say this I mean that she goes to bed around 6:30 or 7:30 (depending on how much she napped) and then does not wake up until 5:30am or later.  We had been struggling with her because it seemed like she was waking up and drinking a little, but she would go right back to sleep.  It was like something was wrong, but her diapers were clean, she wasn't sick or fussy.
     So one night Woody seemed to think she was cold and that was causing her to wake up.  It didn't seem like it since it's so warm where we live, but I gave it a shot since there was nothing else we could think of.  So, I went out the next day and bought a little fleece wearable blanket thing to put over her pajamas, and suddenly she was happy as a clam and not waking up during the night!!!  At first I thought it was just coincidence, but it has been 5 or 6 nights already and it has continued.  I've probably jinxed myself now that I've shared this publicly, but there's just nothing quite like the joy of a parent when she can finally get some uninterrupted sleep more than one night in a row, and without the aid of earplugs!! 
     And, it's funny how my two daughters are so different.  My little Viking Princess NEVER gets cold it seems, and now the baby needs to be practically smothered in sweat to be content.  I don't really care as long as I get a little beauty sleep.  Yep, that's right - beauty sleep.  There's nothing better for skin, fighting colds and just general health than good solid sleep.  And, we all know that no one (especially parents who also have jobs as teachers who deal with kids, kids and kids all day) is pleasant to be around when they are suffering from a case of the 'up all nights'!!

     There are some days I'd just love to leave behind.  Just move on to bigger and better things.  Friday was one of those days.  First of all, the baby has a cold, is getting some teeth, or both, but either way she is cranky.  And slobbery.  And having trouble falling asleep.  Ugh.  Not really so much fun.  But, I suppose it's nothing a little orajel can't fix.  But only if you are talented enough to actually get that stuff where it really needs to go.  After three kids, I'm still practicing.
     Then, the husband discovered that our cat, Thunderball, had a huge quarter-sized scabby wound on his side.  We had heard him get in a fight last weekend, and Woody checked him over but didn't see anything.  Well, the week goes by, we go about our business, and apparently didn't notice the huge gaping wound.  So, Woody takes him to the vet to discover he needs surgery to clean the wound.  A few hours later Thunderball has half his side shaved, 7 or 8 stitches and is in a very ugly mood.  I don't blame him.  We leave with a $400 vet bill and some dirty looks from the receptionists who think we are neglectful cat owners.  Ugh.  Not exactly what I had planned for Friday afternoon.
     So I pick up the kids from daycare and they come home only to reveal (after one of the teachers compliments me on my well behaved children) that they are extremely tired.  Extremely tired translates into monstrously cranky.  The request to pick up Barbie in the middle of the floor is suddenly made to sound as if it's slave labor and apparently Barbie has gained 375 pounds because Viking Princess sobs that she can't do it and needs help to do this tiny little task. 
     Then it is the absolute end of the world when Mommy  has to read T-bone a book for bed instead of Daddy.  This causes an all out world war 3 crying tantrum that can only be rivaled by a toddler who has just had all his toys stolen from him by a scary circus clown.  Seriously.  The tantrums that occur in this house over nothing are to be admired.  I wish I had that much energy.  If only they knew how lucky there were to be forced to go to bed at a decent hour!!
     All the while little Punky is shedding the tears in her crib probably because she is in some kind of pain or has too much snot flowing out of her nose.  Thankfully she can't pull herself up and get out just yet.    
     Eventually they all fall asleep with ghostly streams of dried up tears running down their faces.  And there is really nothing left for Mom and Dad to do but open a bottle of wine, turn on the tv and enjoy the rare silence from upstairs.

Halloween turned out to be really great for the kids this year.  We spent it with friends as our neighborhood is not very conducive to trick-or-treating.  Viking Princess was Tinkerbell, T-bone was Captain Rex from the Clone Wars and the baby was a ladybug.  They were so cute running from house to house asking for candy and yelling 'Thank You' and they ran to the next house. 

Of course, though, nothing involving three children ever goes smoothly and perfectly.  And if it does, you'll be the first to hear about it!

As we were getting ready and I was applying gold, sparkly 'pixie dust' to Viking Princess's arms and hair, the little canister would not stop spraying!  Now we have a very, very sparkly sidewalk and a sparkly basil plant.  The gold sparkles on the green plant would make a lovely Christmas decoration, but somehow I don't think they will stick around long enough for the Xmas holiday. 

I tried to get a picture of all three of them together, but once I put Ladybug on the ground with Cpt. Rex and Tinkerbell to either side of her, Rex and Tink noticed fire ants crawling all around the back of their little Ladybug.  They refused to smile for one second or even look at me, and so we have no pictures of the three of them.  After that they were too excited to go trick-or-treating that  I couldn't get them to sit still.  This is becoming an all too common theme in my world.  Is it really too much to ask that I get a decent picture of the three of them?  Apparently it is, and so I will continue making collages of their individual pictures.