Its It's It is Itsa Whatsa Thanksgiving

The title is a nod to my father, currently disgraced by my use of contractions when blogging.

And it occurred to me that I had a whole title revoloving around cheese curds in the last blog and I failed to actually mention curds in the blog. We like curds. We bought 3 bags of curds at Tillamook. We've been happily eating curds for a week and a half now.

Anyway, back to Thanksgiving bliss. The bliss part was 4 days to (somewhat) sleep in. It wasn't the Beavers loss in the Civil War, though that's what they deserve for giving up 65 points and that's what I get for rooting for them over the Ducks for once.

My kids clean up well, don't they?

We spent Thanksgiving day at my parents house with Annette, Walt, and Lucinda, Deb, and Deb's father Don who were up from Santa Rosa.

Mason was kind enough to assist in the kitchen by transfering whipping cream by spoon from one bowl to another.Clearly Annette and my cousin Lucinda had a lot to consider when examining the vegetable tray. Or it could have been the olives. My dad busted out 3 different kinds of olives and Don gave us a lesson on how olives are made. I haven't gotten past the fact that lye is involved.

Luis, as he does each and every year, was wearing his grey sweatervest. This is the only time of year he wears said sweater. Maybe next year we'll see about getting something under it besides a t-shirt.

One of the nice things about Annette and Walt living in the area now is that the kids have gotten a chance to know them. Siena and Annette had a good time coloring together before dinner.

So, Mr. Contraction attempted to make homemade rolls for Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately they came out as doughy golfballs. Guess you can't win them all. However, as is her style, mom had backups on hand.

We saw the Cruzes over the Thanksgiving weekend as well, having dessert there Thanksgiving and watching the Civil War slaughter with Junior and the kids.

I spent some quality time on the couch too with my Charles Schulz/Peanuts biography (fascinating for any Charlie Brown fan). Speaking of which, we got our tree set up. Granted, it looks a little better than Charlie Brown's but it's still fake. Oh, and the kids helped me decorate.

Here's some of their handiwork on the tree. Yes, that's 5 ornaments on 2 branches.

Mason also set up the nativity scene, which was my favorite thing to do as a kid too. My mom painted these many years ago and was nice enough to give the set to us a couple years ago.

On the flip side, this is the dreaded singing snowman that mom gave the kids last year. They just love pushing the button..."just hear those bells jing jingling"....uff duh.

Since my camera sucks juice out of batteries much in the same way the Delorian sucked electricity out of the Flex Capaciter (Back to the Future for you young bucks) I didn't have a chance to take pictures yesterday at Grandpa Art's 91st birthday party. There was a nice party for him over at his place, including cake, coffee, and ice cream.

We also had dinner with the California cousins at the Old Spaghetti Factory last night (hence no blog until today) and learned that Mr. Picky (aka Mason) LOVES spaghetti! Who knew!?!