Happy Thanksgiving!

What a feast we had today at the Tenney household! It is so wonderful to be with family on this day to enjoy each other and officially kick off the holiday season! We had a fabulous meal. The deep fried turkey actually cooked all the way through this year, we ate on time, and actually watched ALL of the Macy's parade.

There are so many things to be thankful for each year. One more year to be together, with family in good health tops my list. I am thankful for family that desires to be together at the holidays. I am so thankful that we are close to our families. I am thankful for technology that allows me to see my parents via webcam almost every day, even though they live a thousand miles away. In such a busy world where I never seem to get a moment to slow down, days like today are treasures. I pray for health for our family during the next year so we can all come together again next Thanksgiving to celebrate.

Brrr!

After a few days of reprieve in the 60s, old man winter has slammed into West Virginia. Last night it snowed enough to stick (not much, but I noticed on my drive to work that people had snow piled up on their cars) and today's high is a very cold 35 degrees. Right now, according to the weather channel, it's dreary and 33. They actually use the word dreary. How am I supposed to get excited about work?

Give me a break people....

What part of this outfit screams "I'm a BOY"?!?! I am not kidding when I say that while I had Morgan out today that THREE people commented on what a cute little BOY I had. And this is exactly what she was wearing.

I don't get it. Is everyone in Morgantown colorblind? Or is it me....is this coat and hat really red, or blue, or another non-female gender specific color?

I realize that many times I dress Morgan in gender neutral clothing and with her short hair it is not always easy to tell that she is a girl. But today was not one of those days.

So have I lost my mind or has everyone else?

WFMW: Traditions

The holiday season is creeping up fast, and I am trying to get ready for the hustle and bustle of the season. Rocks in my Dryer sponsors a Backward Day on WFMW. Instead of telling you what works for me, I am soliciting ideas for what has worked in the past for you. Alaina asked a good question that I am going to use. Since Morgan is getting old enough to start participating in some holiday activities, my question is very simple...what traditions do your family enjoy for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas? I'm most interested in the traditions that would be good to add into our routine for toddlers but that would also still be fun when they are older. Feel free to leave ideas, websites, recipes, or anything else that you think would be helpful!

One tradition we always did as a family and that I will be starting with Morgan is making paper chains out of red and green construction paper. The day after Thanksgiving my mom would have the strips cut and we would each get 32 (the number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas). We would use a glue stick and loop the paper together and Mom would help us make a chain of alternating colors that we could then hang on our dresser or in our room somewhere. Every day we ripped off a link as a "countdown" to Christmas. On Christmas Eve there is only 1 link left!

Some variations I have thought of that we might start include:

--write something nice to do every day on the countdown rings, or maybe on every 5th ring

--put a sticker or star on one or a couple of the links and if your child gets the star they get to be "in charge" that day (i.e. pick dinner menu, daily activities)

One tradition I plan to start this year are letting Morgan pick an "angel" off of the various trees set up around town to purchase some gifts for a needy child. She will pick the angel and pick out (and eventually pay for) one of the gifts.

Finally, a tradition I started for my brother, Patrick's sister, Morgan and our neice is to give a new ornament to each of them (my brother and his wife, my sister and brother in law, Morgan and Julia seperately) every year. That way when they are decorating their trees they can think of family. And when Morgan leaves home to be on her own, she will be able to take all of her ornaments with her.

Poetic Justice

It never pays to be in a hurry. Never. Bad things happen when one is in a hurry. Case in point...yesterday I was trying to get out a skillet from my cabinet to make dinner. It was later than usual and I had a rather grumpy toddler running around my kitchen asking for cheese and creating havoc everywhere. I was trying to get dinner made fast and the skillet was caught on something in the cabinet. Rather than look in the cabinet to see what was holding things up, I did what any harried mother would do...I yanked. Hard.

One millisecond later pain was shooting from my foot. In my haste to get the skillet out I had knocked over some pots stacked in front of the skillets, sending them all flying and my largest, heaviest stock pot crashing, rim side down, right on my big toe. More precisely, the crease/knuckle of my big toe. It created the kind of pain that had me literally wailing in the kitchen, hopping around clutching my toe, and crying huge crocodile tears. I ended up sitting down because the pain was so intense. I am sure it looked pretty funny from a fly's perspective. The dog was barking at me and trying to lick my face...Morgan was jabbering loudly and gesturing at me and trying to climb in my lap in a touching but painful attempt to stop my wailing. The only adult in the house is wailing on the floor. It was a total mess.

It took a few minutes for the pain to decrease enough for me to stand back up. Then I had to gingerly coax my foot to the floor and put weight on my toe. I am pretty darn sure it's broken. It's black and blue and I tore some skin off in the process. And to add insult to injury the spot that is most painful is right at the crease in my shoes so when I walk in these shoes, that crease presses into the bruise/broken bone.

Moral of the story....take a few seconds to slow down and pay attention to what I was doing. 10 seconds of looking and adjusting would have saved dinner being 15 minutes later than it already was, one poor big toe from assault, and one still harried mom in less pain. Thank goodness Morgan wasn't right beneath my feet when it happened!