Turkeys

This Thanksgiving, I had a lot to be grateful for. I got to go to my mom's house for Thanksgiving dinner for the first time since I got married ten years ago, Marc was actually able to come (a miracle!), and we had gorgeous weather so the boys could play outside a lot during our visit. In addition to my little family and my parents, my brothers Joe and Sam were also there. I wish I had more pictures, but maybe not taking them was one thing that helped keep our day simple and non-stressful. My mom and I whipped up a meal that included turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, gravy, stuffing, rolls, a twelve-layer rainbow jello, fresh cranberry salad, pumpkin pie and chocolate pie. It was all good. In the evening, when it got chilly, my dad lit a fire in the fireplace. I loved the smell of the burning wood and the boys were mesmerized by the flames. It made me think of my childhood and other chilly evenings by the fireplace. I am so thankful for both the family I grew up in and the family Marc and I are raising now and for this fifth little boy who will be joining us soon. Anyway, I did want to share just a handful of pictures of our little Turkeys from our Thanksgiving visit:

My boys are totally spoiled in the pancake department. They always want different shapes. I was very impressed with these Turkey pancakes I made on Thanksgiving morning. My boys were not. They informed me that these definitely looked like bunnies.

My brother, Sam, made this gear for David John to dress up in out of cardboard and duct tape. If anyone needs to quell a riot, David John is ready for your call.

 

Here are all four Turkeys or are they fierce warriors? I'm not sure.

My mom had a little mini-party for the twins since she wouldn't be able to come to their actual birthday party the following week.

They played pin the nose on the pumpkin. Benjamin insisted on putting on his own blindfold. His nose placement was impeccable. I wonder what his secret was?

Gabriel loved to go outside and then warm his toes by the fire. May we all be so grateful for the simple joys in life.

Birthday Boys

Five years ago, today, I was being wheeled into the OR for an emergency C-section to deliver my little (and I mean little) twin boys. I remember the nurses saying, as they pushed my bed down the hallway, "Get ready for kindergarten! Time will go much faster than you think." While the boys aren't in kindergarten just yet, it is hard to believe that they are five. I will not pretend that there are not days or sometimes even hours that seem to drag on for an eternity. Take, for example, the entire winter when they were two years old. That was rough. The point is, the days are long but the years go by so fast. I love and adore these boys. I felt frightened and ecstatic and overwhelmed and grateful when they were born and I'm not sure that my feelings have changed that much. I am so grateful for them, so ecstatic when they learn new things or having an outstanding day but I am also frightened and overwhelmed with the responsibility for raising these two incredible people. Happy Birthday Gabriel and Elijah!

Halloween Take 2

So, remember how Halloween was cancelled and rescheduled? For a day in November? This is what we did on New Halloween weekend.
We started Saturday out right with chocolate chip BOO pancakes. Yum.

That night, we made gruesome spaghetti spiders with blood sauce. Bwahaha!

The boys contributed their own scary ideas- like hanging stuffed animal carcasses from their bunkbed...

...or making mutated potato head monsters!

We touched up and reinforced the awesome guitars for beggar's night on Sunday.

Thankfully, our friends Carla, Kevin and Ben came over for dinner and to help with the trick-or-treating.  The boys scored some serious loot and having a one-to-one adult to child ratio was amazing! Carla got this shot of all four of them in our neighbor's "graveyard".

The only thing that would have made it better was if we could get the boys to sing in four-part harmony. We did manage to get Gabe and David John to each sing a few bars of some Beatles songs. The boys were pretty tired by the time we walked home. I'm pretty sure they would say that it was a "hard day's night".

What the Belly Belies

Being pregnant is a very strange thing to do.
This is what I have concluded after a lot of pondering on the subject. Since this is our last pregnancy, barring a flashing neon sign from Heaven and another fertility miracle, I have really been feeling the need to write something down about the experience especially because pregnancy seems to be one of those things that I conveniently get amnesia about.
I think because it was so hard for us to achieve pregnancy at first, all I really remember about it in between pregnancies are the euphoric feelings that come with the knowledge that a new little person will be joining our family. I forget about the bizarre and the difficult that come with the lovely and wonderful.
Marc, on the other hand, remembers it all. He reminds me that, yes, I absolutely did feel this sick last time. Yes, I was this crazy and cried every time I saw a remotely sappy commercial. Yes, I did get this big and no, I am not fat. Marc is a very patient man.
Anyway, setting out on this last pregnancy journey, I was determined to really Enjoy It. You know, not complain or feel yucky but just really live it up. As part of this plan, I decided to have a basketball belly. You know what I'm talking about. You see these adorable pregnant women who literally look as though they have shoved a regulation men's basketball under their shirt. No other part of their body seems to have been affected by pregnancy at all. This time, I was going to be one of those women. I counted calories, I made healthy choices, I worked out. I even denied myself some of my intense food cravings.
It didn't work. Perhaps having a basketball belly is a genetic trait like cleft chins or attached earlobes. My body seems to have decided that it prefers a model of carrying a baby that we will call the "wrap-around porch" look. In this model, every part of your body between your neck and your calves looks like it is pregnant. My boys seem to recognize this. David John has stated several times that it looks like there is more than one baby in there, and he was not always pointing to my belly. Thank you, son.
The second part of my quest to fully Enjoy It was to really revel in all the little fluttery baby movements you can feel as the baby gets bigger. In this, I think I have been mostly successful. I generally enjoy the nudges and little kicks and sometimes the timing of his movements is uncanny. I often feel as though he is responding to a joke or a comment or a song. It helps me to feel as though there is really a budding personality inside his tiny body. There are other times, however, when the movements are a little less enjoyable. I don't get angry or irritated really but sometimes it is just uncomfortable. It's as though a new roommate has moved in who doesn't pay any rent or even help with the food or utilities but feels that he has the right to rearrange all the furniture (aka internal organs). Marc assures me this is not the case, but I always imagine that when doctors do a c-section delivery there are frequently conversations like this, "What the?!? How did THAT get THERE?" and then they have to put everything back where it belongs before sewing everything back up. I am pretty sure that's how it happened when I had the twins despite Marc's version of events.
Part three of my three-part Enjoying It plan was not to be as emotional this time. I confess on this point that I am an epic failure. I am one emotional momma. To be fair, the majority of this pregnancy is taking place during two of Cleveland's least sunny seasons Almost Winter and Winter. The sun disappears for weeks at a time and even grown men start crying about random things. I came to the conclusion that I was not doing well on this point when I started crying over a Verizon cell phone commercial I saw while watching a show on Hulu. Recently, I burst into tears because Marc asked me if I had rotated the toys recently. I became irrationally upset when he made another pitcher of orange juice even though we already had one in the fridge. Just today, I got all choked up while Marc was showing the boys youtube clips of space shuttles launching right after they built some awesome shuttles and launchpads with their blocks. I couldn't help it. I started thinking about American ingenuity and brave men and women and about how Marc is such an awesome dad to take time to play with blocks when he just got home from back-to-back 14 and 24 hour shifts. Sometimes, I cry because I am frustrated that I cry so much. So, despite my best efforts I am still volatile but I am trying to just relax and laugh at myself and enjoy the roller-coaster ride even if I can't be happy all the time. Being pregnant is a crazy thing to do. It is hilarious and embarrassing, hard and tedious, weird and wild but also amazing. Exciting. Incredible. Beautiful.