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.)

Halloween seems like it was so long ago. But I feel I should blog about it for the grandmas. So!

On Halloween morning, we made pumpkin-shaped pancakes with chocolate chips for eyes. No actual pumpkin was in the pancakes, though. I should have used this recipe from Zakka Life but I was lazy and just used the store-brand pancake mix and food coloring.

But they were still mighty tasty.

Pumpkin-carving time! Annalie designed her own pumpkin, as she has done every year since she was 3 1/2.

This year, she asked if she could help carve it too. So she did! She carved the eyes and nose, with a little help from Troy, and she did a great job.

Gumball supervised.

Pumpkin braaaaaaaiiiiins!

Um, Troy? Perhaps it’s time for a short break from the pumpkin-carving.

After a refreshing Twizzler and a rest in the sun, we got back to work.

Troy and I worked at carving our pumpkins. I even carved a little one for the baby, at Annalie’s request.

Kristen commented on Flickr that she loved that the baby got a punkin too. I replied that to Annalie, this baby has been a real member of the family, included in all plans and stories and holiday traditions, since way back in May when we told her that she’d be getting a baby brother or sister around Thanksgiving. She’s got big plans for them to have sisters-only secret handshakes, sleepovers, and makeover parties.

Trick-or-treating time! Annalie was a Sock Hop Sweetie this year for Halloween.

She fell in love with this costume the minute she saw it at Target, which kind of surprised me. She oohed and aahed over the various princess ones, and seriously considered a Daphne (from Scooby Doo) costume, but the minute she saw the bobby soxer pictured on the label of this one with her hair in a high ponytail and a scarf tied jauntily around her neck, she forgot them all.

She went with the one high ponytail on Friday, when we went trunk-or-treating, but for some reason on Halloween she decided she wanted two low ponytails instead. After I finished curling her hair, she surveyed herself in the full-length mirror and declared, “I look CUTE!”

I sort of dressed up as Juno for Halloween. I found an orange-and-white striped shirt on clearance a few weeks before Halloween, and I had bought myself a cheap black hoodie jacket at Old Navy, hoping it would get me through whatever cold weather we had before I had the baby so I wouldn’t have to buy an expensive maternity coat, and the costume just sort of fell into place. I really should have been wearing a short skirt over my jeans and carrying around a blue Slushie. But eh. I’m eight months pregnant and I don’t even really like Halloween all that much. Half a costume was enough.

On the way home, we saw that one of our neighbors had set all this stuff out labeled “Purple Heart donations”. I so badly wanted to sneak off with the KitchenAid mixer for a friend who had just been talking about wanting one, but Troy wouldn’t let me, even after I told him I’d make a cash donation to the veterans. He’s an upstanding citizen like that. And honestly, I probably wouldn’t have really done it. I’m an upstanding citizen too, even when people leave expensive kitchen appliances sitting out on the curb. Sigh.

We didn’t really do a whole lot of trick-or-treating. Annalie was done after going up and down two streets, so we headed back home. We lit our jack-o-lanterns and a fire in the fireplace. We ate roasted pumpkin seeds and played a board game. Occasionally some trick-or-treaters would come to the door, and Annalie would hop up to answer it, offering them the bowl with a cheerful, “Take a few, there’s plenty!” Even with her generosity, we still had a ton of candy left over. Oh darn.

From Juno, the Sock Hop Sweetie, and Captain Awesome, a belated Happy Halloween! Hope yours was as good as ours.

Outside my window It’s raining hard. We have a tarp spread out on the deck because the window right under the deck was leaking when it rained hard the other day, and…to make a long story short, it was our stopgap solution to keep the window from leaking again before it gets fixed. So far it’s working, and as a bonus the rain sounds lovely hitting the tarp.

I am thinking about Veronica Mars. Troy and I have been working our way through all three seasons on Netflix Instant for the past few weeks, and we both find that when we watch a couple of episodes in an evening we spend the next day or two thinking about the characters and whatever the current mystery is. We’ve both even dreamed about the show a couple of times. I’ve developed a whole new respect for Kristen Bell, have fallen more in love with Enrico Colantoni (whom I already loved forever for his role as Mathesar in Galaxy Quest), and have decided I might watch the cancelled series Moonlight, even though it’s about vampires, just so I can see Jason Dohring act some more.

I am thankful for how well homeschooling is going. I didn’t expect it to go badly, but I was a bit apprehensive about our first year of sitting down and actually doing lessons from a curriculum. I wasn’t sure how Annalie would do with her first taste of formal schooling…which is really hilarious because if you were to watch us during a typical school day, we are anything but formal. Anyway, things have been going great. Of course there have been bumps in the road and some moments of frustration, but I can deal with those, no problem. I’ve found myself very thankful for my years of experience as a classroom aide, tutor, camp counselor, etc. And Annalie has told me almost every day how much she loves homeschooling.

I am wearing cropped jeans, because I have temporarily misplaced my regular maternity jeans, a turquoise t-shirt, and black flip-flops. I am not wearing my wedding ring these days, which makes me kind of sad. But only a couple more months and I’ll be able to wear it again.

I am remembering that today is my nephew Leo’s 5th birthday! Happy birthday, Leo!

I am going to the post office later today, to mail some thank-you notes and a couple of surprise packages. Also to the grocery store because we’re almost entirely out of cereal.

I am currently reading Naked Heat, which is a book ostensibly authored by a fictional character from the TV show Castle. So far it’s just as good as the first Nikki Heat book, Heat Wave. And both books are as good as or better than an episode of Castle. Love it.

I am hoping that this baby will be born between November 26th and December 3rd.

On my mind: uh…sudoku? I’ve been doing lots of sudokus lately.

Noticing that I seem to be incapable of drinking a whole cup of coffee without reheating it at least twice.

In the kitchen there is a full cookie jar and leftover homemade pizza in the fridge.

Around the house are lots of things that need cleaning up, organizing, straightening, or put away. I’ve sort of fallen off the housework bandwagon lately. I think it’s at least partly due to my newfound hobby of figuring out ways to pick things up off the floor without bending over. Mostly I just ask Annalie help me.

One of my favorite things is how recently, Annalie declares that almost every day is a pajama day. Right now she’s wearing flannel PJ pants with rainbows and monkeys on them.

From my photo archive: this photo of Annalie was taken in January 2007, when she was a little more than 2 1/2 years old. I love the look of concentration on her face.