Black Friday

Sarah loves to shop. I don't. Black Friday really excites her.  It scares me.  Last year I took her to Walmart in Morton on Black Friday and gave her a little taste of the craziness (I wouldn't even think of going to Peoria).  Instead of scaring her, it thrilled her enough to beg to go again this year.  I took her to Kmart in Morton this time, which was still a challenge for me, but not as bad as Walmart. 

 She was so excited to check out after waiting in line for 30 minutes.

She conquered it, and she's wearing her new shirt to prove it.

 Noah pretended to conquer it, but in reality...

This is what he and Mike were doing while we were shopping.

Thanksgiving

 We made a Happy Thanksgiving banner.

 This is the first year that I haven't cooked the turkey.  We bought a hickory smoked turkey from Yordy Farms. It was the tastiest bird I've ever eaten.

 Noah peeled almost ten pounds of potatoes in fifteen minutes. He's been peeling the Thanksgiving potatoes since he was about three years old.

 My dad carving the bird in his new man apron.

There we all are, enjoying the all the delicious food.

 After the meal, the men talked to their dads,

 the women washed dishes,

 the boys got crazy in the basement,

 and Aunt Amy spent some girl time with Sarah.

 The weather was perfect, so Jeff & Amy and Mom & I went for a walk. When we got back, it was time to transition into the next holiday: Noah's birthday.

 It was a really nice Thanksgiving.

Chicken ranch wraps

 This is one of our current favorites.  I marinate chicken breasts, bake and slice them, put them on a wrap with cheese, and heat it in the microwave for 15 seconds.

 Then add toppings of choice.  Sarah eats hers with just ranch dressing.  The rest of us like them fully loaded: lettuce, tomato, green onion, cucumber, garlic salt, pepper. Bacon would be delicious,but I didn't have any.

Wrap it up and eat. Cheap, easy, good, healthy.

Noah's birthday

Noah turned 14 today.  This is the first time he's woken up to snow on his birthday.  It was the first snow of the season, and it was coming down softly in big flakes all morning.  He got up early and opened his presents.  Sarah gave him gum and a Google Play gift card.  She also wrote him a sweet letter with the timeline of his life: past, present, and future.  He opened the box that Aunt Kathy and Uncle Matt had sent and was happy to find headphones and putty.

Then he went on a treasure hunt and found money all over the house.  The clues took him up and down the stairs and in and out of the garage several times. Each clue had a few dollars with it. He's saving money to buy computer parts to build his own computer.  He went to Eli's for coffee and came home to play Minecraft with his friends.

I made lunch and salted caramel lava cakes. We sang to him, and he blew out his one candle. Nana & Papa came over in the afternoon and brought him a card and money. Then we went to Pekin for a night of fun.

 Gondola at Avanti's. The server heard us talking about his birthday and brought him a piece of cake!

 We reserved laser tag at Sunset Lanes, but they messed up the reservation so he and Mike got to bowl a free game while we waited. Sarah and I went to the arcade.

Laser tag was fun and tiring.

Growing up

I was talking to Noah about his birthday and what he really wants.  He said, "I don't really care about cake and presents and parties and balloons and all that.  All I really want is just love and attention.  I think that's what everybody wants."

Scary Reindeer

When Noah was little, he used to sing, "Feliz Navidaddy" instead of Feliz Navidad.  He would always want to call Daddy and sing it to him, since he thought it was his own special Christmas song.  So every time we heard it on the radio, we would stop what we were doing, call Daddy, and sing and dance wildly.  He remembered it every year and got Sarah in on the action when she came along.  Somehow we're STILL doing this every year. 

Yesterday I had the TV on the station that plays Christmas music.  Sarah and I were listening while we were playing a game.  Feliz Navidad came on, and she ran to the basement to get Mike and Noah, yelling that our song was on. They ran upstairs, and I cranked up the volume, and we danced around the bedroom.  Then I turned off the TV, and we all went back to our regular lives.

I had recorded the news and sat down to watch it a little after 11:00 p.m.  When I turned on the TV, it was still on the Christmas station, and it was still super loud, so "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" came blasting through the house.

Mike loves Janel

An advertisement arrived in the mail last week, trying to guilt Mike into buying me a customized piece of jewelry declaring his love for me. 

 I thought it was funny, so I cut it out and put it on the fridge.

Then I cut out all the examples of this imaginary piece of jewelry that I'll never own (and wouldn't want to) and gave them to Mike. He looked at me like, "What am I supposed to do with these little scraps?" so I told him something like, "Put those somewhere where I'll find them."  I thought they would find their way to the garbage can.  

Several days went by, and I never gave them another thought.  I hadn't given exercise any thought either, so I went downstairs to do an exercise video.  I was dreading it, as always, but when I went to hit the power button, there was this:

It made me so ridiculously happy that I squealed and cried.

Today I took the kids to church for a funeral.  On the way back home, it was raining, and I was feeling tired and sad.  As I turned onto our street, I reached up to get ready to push the garage door opener button, and there was another little picture of the jewelry.  I said to the kids (as I drove right past our driveway), "Aw, look! Your daddy loves me!"  I showed it to them, and Sarah said, "Where did he get that?"  I told her that I had cut them out and given them to him with instructions to give them to me.  I told her something I hope she'll remember when she gets older: "Sometimes men need a little help knowing how to love us."  

A couple hours later, it was quiet time, and I opened my book to read.  Next to my bookmark was this:

Later I was making soup for dinner. I opened the cabinet where I keep the spices and found this:

Each time I found one, I felt so loved!  Not only did he not throw them away, he took the time to think about where to hide them so that I would be sure to find them at different times.