The Birds And The Bats

Last Saturday, Megan and Liam came running upstairs after watching a TV show: "Guess what?!? A bird got in our house and is flying around!"

Mr. Incredulous asks back, "A real bird?"

"Yeah, there's a real bird in our family room!!" they yell excitedly.

So we go down stairs to check. Mac sticks his head into the room to look. Just as I get a quick glimpse of a flitting animal, Mac screams like a little girl and pulls the door shut quickly. "It's a BAT!"

Ok, now just imagine a huge blood sucking rabid bat doing circles in our family room... This was nothing like that. We had a teeny-weeny flying rodent trapped downstairs and our adrenaline was flowing.

"Just open the outside door and let the bat fly out," I say. Mac agrees that this is genius, that is until he realizes the door is locked and can't be opened from the outside. Finally realizing that he needs to grow a pair, he agrees to dart across the room and open the door, which he does with amazing expertise for such a complicated task.

We close the bat in, with its only otion for leaving the room to go outside, which it eventually does and order is restored to our little house in the country.

***
Thursday Megan says to me with longing, "I wish someone would bring us a baby birdie."

I don't what she is talking about, so I ask if one of her friends got a baby birdie.

"No!," She tells me,"like the song!"

"Megan, What are you talking about?!?"

"You know the Christmas song: Oh bring us a baby birdie, Oh bring us a baby birdie, Oh bring us a baby birdie and bring it right now."

I explained it was 'figgy pudding' but I think I'd rather have a baby birdie, too.

Soccer Studs

Megan and Liam had a soccer trial. Megan loved it and will be honing her soccer skills for the next 7 Wednesday afternoons. Liam may need to develop and grow just a bit more before joining the class, but he did have a bit of fun kicking the ball around in a highly uncoordinated fashion.

Heeee's Back!

Ok, so do you remember our "Poltergeist" ?

Well, our new pendant lights had been up for less than two weeks, when we came home to this scene:

A plastic hook inside the light just mysteriously broke. Fortunately, the lamp didn't hit anything on the way down so the glass didn't shatter. Lowe's replaced the light for free (we did not disclose our paranormal situation but instead claimed that the light was faulty). Kendall says ghosts don't like new things...she may be on to something! (BTW - can you see the "ghost" in the window reflection??)

Real Thanksgiving

Megan's school had a big Thanksgiving celebration on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Not only was there a big feast, but everyone got to dress up as Indians!

Now instead of having a nice white pillowcase that I can use for guests, Megan has a tattered rag dress with petroglyphs all over it!

Since we had already done the family thing, we had another Salem family over for Thanksgiving day. It was their son's 5th birthday, so for dessert we had the proper melding of the two events: a pumpkin spice birthday cake!

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

A Week Of Family Celebration

Early in November (8th-14th), my sister's family and my parents were here for a week long celebration.

We started things off the first night with a belated 3rd birthday bash for Brooke (mid-October).

The next night the adults hit the town, while Grammy and Grandpa spent quality time with the kids. We all went wild and had one mixed drink, which we all agreed was our current limit. Parenting has crippled our livers!!

The following day we were on to Thanksgiving! Because of an incoming storm we decided to go out and enjoy our new fire pit before dinner. What says "Holiday" better than s'more appetizers?!

I got to simultaneously enjoy some of the good things in life: beer, a s'more, and a cute baby that I don't have to take care of when he cries!

Then it was on to the feast. We had full Thanksgiving fixings: maple glazed turkey, salad, stuffing, squash, potatoes (homegrown!), and pumpkin ice cream (which won the vote over pumpkin pie by a large margin). It was just like the real thing, but without football (it was Tuesday).

What's a guy got to do to get some turkey around here?

Liam was thankful for more men in the house to share his love of trucks and tractors.

Veteran's Day is my sister and bro-in-law's actual anniversary, so we sent them out for another night on the town.

And then, Thursday we were ready for Christmas! We even had a tree and everything. ;)

And we posed for the obligatory family photos. Yet again, Megan ended up in a sundress for Christmas.

We had another great dinner, this time with prime-rib from our own pasture! You can see it was very different from the Thanksgiving celebration, because we wore red and got out Christmas napkins and plates.

About five minutes in to dinner the kids were clamoring to open gifts.

"presents! presents! presents!"

Finally we let them have at it.

The night concluded with a little downtime on the couch.

It was a great visit with lots of cousin fun. We wish we could do it more often.