Thanks to my mom, Troy and I had the opportunity to go see Super 8 on Friday night all by ourselves. (The movie was excellent. We recommend it.) The theater we went to has two unusually long escalators that go from the ground floor up to the third floor where half the theaters are located.

My Day 7 alternate. Mmmmm, chocolate chip sour cream coffee cake… (via smitten kitchen)

Annalie intended to take her self-portrait on Day 7 with the new bear she got at Build-A-Bear, but she didn’t get around to it and then Troy and I went out on a date with no kids and I forgot to remind her. So I took this photo of her sleeping with her new bear next to her. Cheating? Yes. Forgiveable? I hope so.

That’s another 7 Days week!

Well, crud. I knew we were forgetting something.

Just kidding. We knew it was Thanksgiving today. We weren’t sure what would be going on today, though. Would I be having a baby? Recovering from having a baby? Still very pregnant and not in the mood to cook a big turkey dinner with all the trimmings?

We decided to have ham instead of turkey. We figured whatever was going on, a ham would be easier to manage than turkey.

As it turned out, we didn’t even have the ham today, but not for any of the reasons we thought. I came down with a cold a couple of days ago and never got around to making pies early. Then this morning I woke up feeling groggy despite 11 hours of sleep, and with no voice. So I wasn’t in the mood to cook a big turkey dinner, but it had nothing to do with any of the reasons we expected. Also, Brenda and Bug were both sick with a 24-hour stomach bug the day before, and although they were recovered by this afternoon, Brenda wasn’t really operating at full strength today either.

On top of that, the contractors who’ve been slllooowwwlllyyy fixing the water damage in the downstairs bedroom were supposed to come yesterday to shampoo the carpets, but they never showed up. This did not surprise us, as they have a history of not showing up till several days after they said they would. Troy tried calling the head contractor all day long, but his phone’s voicemail box is full or broken or something, and if the guy doesn’t answer his phone we can’t leave a message. Troy eventually decided he didn’t want to wait till Monday to get it done, he just wanted the carpets cleaned. Last night he rented a steam vacuum from a grocery store, and this morning he had big plans to steam-vac the heck out of that carpet, so we could get moving on making that bedroom into the office and making the old office into the baby’s room…

ANYWAY. Long story short, we decided to postpone our Thanksgiving Ham Dinner till tomorrow. We had leftover mac & cheese (homemade!) for lunch, went to see Tangled (entertaining! Chuck sings!) this afternoon, and had Brenda’s famous stir-fry (Annalie likes it better than mine!) for dinner. I took it easy most of the day, Troy got the carpets cleaned and some furniture moved downstairs, Brenda got some cleaning and organizing done, which she swears she actually enjoys and I’m taking her at her word.

Tomorrow, Troy has the day off again. We’ll all presumably be feeling better. We’ll be making pie and ham and roasted potatoes and green beans and eating it all, and then picking my mom up at the airport. It’ll be a good day for giving thanks, even though it’s not the actual Thanksgiving.

God knows we have plenty to be thankful for, no matter the day. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy the rest of the long weekend!

(In case anyone’s curious, the thankfulness turkey craft is from preschool daze, via Crafty Crow.)

Troy and I went to see Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince last Friday. When I saw this poster I couldn’t resist gazing longingly at it and taking my final 7 Days self-portrait for the week. I love Robert Downey Jr., and I love Sherlock Holmes. So yeah, I’m a little excited about this movie.

I was happy to end this 7 Days run with two photos I really like. It was kind of a weird week, and a lot of my photos felt rushed. But I actually had two good photos to choose from on the final day. You can’t really tell in the above photo, but this was more like a trippy concrete ladder than a staircase. It was at the mall where we went to see the movie, on a steep wall between the upper level where there were lots of shops and the lower level where the theater was located. It was very odd, but in a good way.

We were able to go see Harry Potter thanks to our friends the Jays. We drove up to their house Friday afternoon and left Annalie there to play while we went on our date.

Before we left for the theater, we had just enough time for a piece of cake. Joe’s and Nina’s 13th and 11th birthdays are both in July, so I made this cake for them with a really rich chocolate-sour cream frosting. Yum! The only thing I regret is that we didn’t remember to have a second piece before we came back home the next day.

Annalie had so much fun playing with Nina and Joe and their neighborhood friends that she barely noticed we were gone. And we definitely enjoyed the movie, despite the loud talking talkers who were sitting right behind us, using some decidedly R-rated language even though they were at a PG movie with quite a few young kids in the audience.

When I first met Joe he was the same age Annalie is now. I remember sitting on that same couch in Virginia Beach, Joe cuddled up next to me while we watched My Neighbor Totoro. Now that sweet little boy is a tall, smart, kind teenager. And in the blink of an eye, Annalie will be 13 and Joe will be the same age as the loudmouths behind us at the theater (though I trust he’ll never be that guy cussing at the screen). Life, it really does come at you fast.