Happy Thanksgiving and Stuff!

Over a week since I posted- yikes! (but lord knows, I've done worse). Everyone has stayed fairly healthy, so that's the good news. We got hit by a small stomach bug, but it was a 24 hour thing and seemed to get less severe with each victim. By the time I got it, it was just a general feeling of queasiness. Will has been 100% healthy all week long, and he's back to his usual shenanigans. While I'm grateful for good health, I wasn't so glad to see the return of his hijinks. I'd almost gotten used to him being calmer and more compliant over his month of illness, so I was kind of unprepared for him to come raring back, into everything he can get his hands on.

The craziness was magnified by the fact that Mason had the whole week off of school. I tell you what, three boys are LOUD. And my three boys are incredibly loud. There were days where I thought about hiding out in the bathroom with the door locked and a bottle of wine!! But I had to resist that temptation, because there were errands to run in preparation for Thanksgiving. I had the usual grocery store, Target, Walmart things to do, but I also had to take all three boys to get a haircut by myself. (We did not go to the beauty school- I've learned my lesson) Our regular hairdresser was closed the day before Thanksgiving so I took them to some chain store. Whereupon I waited 20 minutes, threatening their lives the entire time to keep them in chairs and out of the displays of hair products. Then I attempted to wrangle the twins during Mason's cut, keep Will in the chair for his, and bodily restrain a crying, screaming Hays for his. That was an adventure that I have no desire to repeat at any point during the rest of my life.

And today was my favorite of all days, Thanksgiving. I, for the first time ever, did the turkey. I've been reading recipes and techniques for a month. I'd even done a practice run on a turkey breast. But no matter how well-prepared you are, it can still be kind of nerve-wracking to roast the bird for the feast for the first time. There are so many things that can go wrong- overcooking it and winding up with a dry, tasteless turkey, or worse, undercooking it and everyone winds up in the emergency room with food poisoning! Luckily for all of us, I did neither. It turned out beautifully. In fact, everything did. It was a smaller crowd for us this year. My grandmother's been in and out of the hospital for several months and just wasn't up to making the trip out here. And honestly, we weren't up to carting the kids down to Macon. So my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents had Thanksgiving there, and we stayed here with my parents and sisters. We missed the big crowd, but it was kind of nice to have a really laid-back holiday as well.

So now we're gearing up for Thanksmas. Mason's already got his tree in his room up and decorated, and we'll be getting ours tomorrow (as long as the weather cooperates). Matt and I will be busting out the giant tree cage and all our holiday finery. The twins were really taken with Mason's tree, so I hope the tree cage will keep them out of ours. They wanted to touch all the ornaments, and Will kept kissing it and saying, "High five?" I've got a lot of ornaments that might not survive an exuberant high five, so I'm really counting on the tree cage!!