Howard Trio Plus One: Thanksgiving Weekend

Micah's parents came back to ABQ for Thanksgiving. It was great to have family in town for our trio's first Thanksgiving meal as last year they weren't eating solids yet. Although we supplied the turkey and I made the green bean casserole, my MIL ended up doing 99% of the cooking which I appreciated as I don't enjoy cooking very much and I don't get much of a break from it these days as I don't feel right about feeding our toddlers Dominos. She made most of it ahead of time and brought it along so there wasn't much that needed to be done on actual Thanksgiving except for the turkey and heating everything up, which was nice since there was so much else we wanted to get done while they were in town. We all enjoyed our meal, and our babes seemed to think it was fine (they weren't begging for more but they weren't throwing it all over the floor either).

Thanksgiving day was actually spent working around the house, both in the yard cleaning up leaves and taking down the old archway in the backyard from the previous owners which was falling apart, and working inside on the laundry / mud room. It felt a bit sacrilegious to work so hard on Thanksgiving day, but Micah had to go to work on Friday so we felt like we had to make good use of our time while his parents were in town. During the evening we did stop by our friends Dan and Val's house for pie and a bit of socializing, which was a nice break from the work as we always enjoy their company.

Men working

The girls make great supervisors

Watching Daddy work

Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving we took our kids to their first adult party. They have been to several parties, but usually there are many kids around and this time there was only one other toddler in the house besides our three. They enjoyed exploring our friends' house, eating popcorn and fresh-baked cookies, taking books off of the bookshelf, chasing our friend's miniature 5 lb. dog, playing with TV remotes, and watching a silent Christmas movie on a large projector screen...all things we don't normally let them do in our baby proofed house! It seemed like they really enjoyed their independence and all three were really brave wandering around and interacting with whomever they came across. It was funny to watch and made us realize that we need to do things like that more often so that they have a variety of experiences. Thanks for inviting us all to your party Dave and Jen!

Playing on a rocking chair and watching a silent Christmas movie

The rest of the weekend was spent working around the house, and my MIL and I did do a little shopping with our babes, although they seemed to tire of it quickly. Now that they are fully mobile they are not as content sitting in a stroller or shopping cart for a long period of time. We also opened a few Christmas presents as we don't have plans to all be together again until after Christmas.

I am happy to report that a ton of progress was made in our laundry / mud room over the weekend. It wasn't very functional before as it was basically a small room with a washer and dryer and a large shelf that was too high for me to reach without a step stool. Micah came up with a great design based on each of our needs and desires, and I think it will work great once we get the trim up, get it painted, put up some coat hooks, add some baskets, and put on cabinet doors. Some day we hope to have a house with a large mudroom since there are a lot of shoes and jackets needed for a family of five, but for now I think this will work well.