THANKSgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. This year we are just so grateful to be in our new home--WE LOVE IT HERE! Every single day we mention something that we love about it to each other. There's a beautiful view from every window, there are lots of windows, our bathtub is a place of watery-bubbly joy, I have an office (that the kids sneak into every five seconds) AND Aaron has an office, there is lots of cabinet space for our dishes, I watch the sunrise every morning out our back windows while doing yoga stretches, our kitchen smells yummy (most of the time), our coat closet holds all our coats (and boots and mitts, though at least half the mitts are missing their mates, and though having a nice big closet hasn't magically taught our children how to hang things up rather than flinging them on the floor), there hasn't been a single day since we moved here when it was legitimately too cold to play outside, the snow is this lovely powdery fluffy stuff that is not lethal, birds fly through all the time, the house smells awesome when I do laundry, we can barely hear the kids when they go down to the basement to play, our kids are mostly remembering to wash their hands after meals (which means our walls are cleaner), the master-bedroom closet is in the master-bath which has turned out to be way more convenient than I could have imagined, when I step onto our back porch I step into a little slice of nature, we have two fireplaces (that Aaron won't let me run yet because he wants them inspected first, blah), and well, it's just perfect for us.

So despite a quiet celebration with just us at home, we had a very thankful Thanksgiving. And hopefully next year everyone we know (well maybe not everyone) will join us!

The yummy food, which the kids really really helped prepare this year. It was delish!

And here are a few pictures of the house that we're so thankful for (there wasn't enough light, so they're a bit grainy). The kids rooms are pretty much done now, except that I'm sure more things will materialize on the walls in the future. It's so nice to have carpeted bedrooms again, and for someone who is not very decorating-saavy, I think they turned out okay. The girls' room looks out over our street to a little nature preserve behind the houses opposite us. Their view is especially nice in the snow. Also, Addy at last has a really, truly big-girl bed. That poor girl overstayed her welcome on a toddler bed by about a year, and is thrilled to finally have a place to stretch out and sleep comfortably!

The boys' room overlooks our pond in back, and they have an awesome view of the sunrise every morning (when they drag themselves out of bed in time to see it, anyway). There's a monkey theme on Theo's bed, and fleecy Diego sheets on Emer's. Both rooms have standing lamps that didn't make the picture, but in the girls' room there are pink shades on the lights, and in the boys room brown and green shades, so at night the rooms have a lovely, colorful glow to them. I'm planning to add some curtain hold-back hooks at some point, but they haven't gone on sale yet (they're like $20-40 a set, which seems exorbitant to me), so a couple of ribbons are doing the job just fine for now.

And I really like their bathroom, too (though the counter is rarely actually cleared off). I've been hoarding this cute rubber duckie decor that Grandma Donna sent a couple of years ago, and I love how cute it looks in their bathroom. There's a shower curtain, towels, and even these little sticky-suction guys that the kids play with at bath time (like the upside down one on the shower wall). At the rate we're going, there's a chance our kids might even start taking baths more than twice a week someday. Maybe.

So that's our upper floor with the exception of my little office, which is currently littered with Theo and Addy's afternoon of reading/dropping-everything-they-picked-up-on-the-floor, so no picture there until another day, I guess. But see? Don't we have a lot to be grateful for? I just love it here!!