Thanksgiving and things

 I'm not sure what all we've been up to the last few weeks.  Somehow the time gets filled and it's not monumental enough to remember.  

Some days my sister sends me lots of pictures of all of the mischief her kids get into... and I send back pictures like this- here is my perfect toddler, lining up blocks for the last 10-15 minutes.  hehe.

Bob and I went to potluck one Saturday evening.  

I tried to taper off nausea meds and it ended badly.... also, fun fact, puking your guts out while you're pregnant releases your pelvic floor so, double unpleasant.  huzzah.  So I stay on them and feel relatively human, if slightly tired.  

The girls had another watch week at tumbling. :)

The whole town was out of power for a few hours that evening because they were moving power lines around.  Bob is prepared though, so we had our battery light bulbs ready to go, and even had the modem on a battery so instead of going to bed the girls could watch cartoons on the tablet. ha.  Good to know we have the important things covered.

Little Miss Domestic is working on a gift for her teacher. 

 And Little Miss 'I helping you' is not helping me pin baste a baby quilt.  "I hop onna quilt."

Clothes are apparently optional around here.

So we didn't make any Thanksgiving day plans because I really only need to go to one Thanksgiving... and large group events are just not appealing right now for whatever reason.  I'll blame it on hormones... anyway, so Emmy and Bob were pretty sure we needed to smoke some ribs.  It was cold and windy enough that they had a hard time keeping the smoker at the right temperature, but they turned out pretty good anyway.

The Kochs got together on Friday... and Bob got to debut his prototype copy of their game.  :P

Saturday we spent cleaning and decorating! 

Ooo, a quis-mas!

I don't need naps any more! I don't!

This week has felt long because Bob has been ill.  It's the longest stretch of mostly solo parenting since, oh March 2020 probably. ha. Yes, I've been quite spoiled.  And of course no one wanted to eat anything I've made for supper this week.... woot.   But the weather has been great.  Most of the leaves are off the trees, finally, so I tried to pace myself and rake a little bit every day, and then the plan was to mulch them all at once with the mower.  

Except that the mower suddenly wouldn't drive forward or backward and rolled down the driveway to the road... sigh.  So I called Dad to ask what I should even be looking for- someday I am going to take a small engines class so I won't be so clueless, someday.  So he had me looking for broken belts and sheared bolts and cotter pins... uh huh, uh huh, I have a vague idea of what those things mean.  Also: Are you sure you should be doing this in your condition?  Me: Well I THOUGHT I was just going to be sitting on the mower for an hour and Bob is sick on the couch....   Anyway, after clearing away a bunch of grass and leaves and debris (oooopsss... not the best at lawnmower maintenance obviously) with a stick and the leaf blower, I got out my trusty blue tarp, lay down in the road (insanely uncomfortable btw) and could finally see where the drive belt had slipped off its guide.  Woot woot! I was very proud of myself.

So I did get to finish mulching leaves, and I'm getting old and too far along because I've been sore all over ever since- it's painful holding yourself on the seat of a bouncing mower with no working abdominal muscles. Things like this also makes me miss Grandpa-as-he-was, because I feel like he would have known right away what was wrong with the mower and how I could fix it.  I just needed a coverall, cardboard from a pallet of seed to lay on and a PAG seed cap....  :)

Looked out my kitchen window to find "Luna-kitty," as Miri calls her, perched on the wall looking for prey.  We're very glad she comes over and I really hope she takes care of whatever is making all of the new holes I'm finding in the landscaping. 

I did not sign us up for church caroling this year.... I love caroling, but for whatever reason I'm just feeling anti-social and I figured somebody would probably be sick anyway.... which was true.  And then Cecily had an opportunity to carol with a school group tonight and I was feeling crummy so I decided I couldn't take her to that.  Poor kid.  I'm hoping the rest of December is not like this, I mean, I know I won't have any extra energy, but still.   

Blessings.