We Thank Thee Dear Father

We seem to have a history of illness at Thanksgiving.  (And Christmas, for that matter....)  When we lived in the tiny apartment, it was stomach flu.  The next year, we spent Thanksgiving with dear friends in Pennsylvania.  I think I had a bad cold and a breast infection.  I don't remember the next Thanksgiving, but the one after that, the week previous we had a horrible stomach bug (Noro virus or something like that—it was going around Chicago) and then the actual week of Thanksgiving, nearly everyone at my parents' house (except us because we'd had it the week before!) had the same thing.  Ugh.

This picture makes me happy.  Stomach bugs do not.

This year, it's a bunch of sniffles, colds, a fever for the baby (that lasted forever and accompanied other symptoms, but he's now on the mend), and other stuff for other family members.  I'm sure we'll all be well enough to travel (barring any unforeseen stomach flus!), but it's been a little hectic getting ready for the big day and trying to fit in some school while a certain cute boy wants to be held all the time.

This is a healthy Johnny.

Who happens to be diving into a bowl of bacon.

What's odd about that?

What's been nice today is that the kids have been coming up with all kinds of things that sound to my ears like "school," all on their own!  Maggie wants to start a weather chart to document the daily weather.  Later she did some phonics at Starfall, and then she followed that up with inquiring about "curvess" (cursive), pulling out the letter formation chart to check it out (she was shocked by the cursive b and also surprised that the uppercase E looks like a backwards 3), and finally tracing some block letters to spell various words.  Next on her self-made agenda is playing the game Mastermind (which I think fills the Math void for the day).

Baths followed by french braids provide the curls.

Meanwhile, her sister Susannah tagged along and while Maggie was tracing, Susannah was writing out the alphabet from start to finish.  Right now, they've been playing happily for some time, and John has again fallen asleep in my lap, as he still seems to need about three naps a day to recover from his illness.  At least he's cheerful today and letting me put him down to go to nap occasionally!

Something intellectual, certainly, going on here with Grandpa K.

Most of our days are not quite so free-form (or at least, I do make them sit and do various workbooks and read from previously chosen—by me—books), but it's so helpful for them to have so many interests all on their own on a day when I need to get our lives back together after tending to a sickie!

Fr. Andrew and Grandma K.

As we prepare for Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my kids' inquisitive minds, for our (mostly) healthy bodies, for the good food we will have, and for a holiday that brings my dispersed siblings back together in the home of our parents once again. Yes, there will be plenty of sibling revelry this weekend.  God bless!

This girl gives me lots of love.  :) 

*Photos from our trip to Schmidt's Sausage Haus and Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio.  Isn't it impressive that we managed to capture all of us at some point on this outing?