Since I'm sure I won't be updating any other time this week, here's wishing everyone a great Thanksgiving.  Here's a look at our thanksgiving project this year, our Thankfulness tree:

Each leaf is one thing we are thankful for.  The tree is surrounded by bible verses about giving thanks to God, which was their copy work last week :)  We didn't do this every day, but the kids understand more now that we've been given SO much, and it all is provided by God.

And now, off to my cleaning & filing.  I'm supposed to be thankful for that too

We don't really have changing of the seasons in the desert, at least not where I live. This tree outside my mom's window is so pretty. The picture does not really capture the deep burnt orange color. My dad came to visit today too.

The room is done!   There is even some furniture moved in already.  It came out great, a little bit smaller than we had hoped for, but GREAT none the less...  The whole experience was great!  The contractor was super GREAT!   The workers were great! The project came in $600 under the proposal so we had some additional work done.  Our contractor went out of his way to get us deals.  He went two counties away to get us bamboo floors that were sitting in a barn ~ the leftovers of a business that had gone under.  We got them for $1 a linear foot ... they retailed for over $5 a linear foot.  They are perfect!!  He also looked our house over and found a few things that were in desperate need of repair and fixed them for almost no cost.  Let's put it this way.  Part of our home had to be jacked up because of a failing support beam.  He did the job for $76 ~ the cost of the beam and a little extra to pay for his helper.  The mess was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be ....  So, you all want me to stop carrying on about how great it was and let you see the results for yourselves!?!?

Yay! Well, this is all you are getting right now.  The big reveal will be just after Christmas.  This year we are giving no toys (except stocking stuffers) so that we can decorate the children's bedrooms.  I'll show you all the rooms once we have curtains up and such.

In the meantime we will be painting the rest of this room.  We decided to paint the floor insted of refinishing the wood becuase it is so costly if you have a professional do it.  My dh has refinished two floors in our home, but it was a really grueling project, and they have not held up as well as we would have expected.  So for now we will paint this floor instead.  We will need to do all of the trim work and no furniture can go on it for a week. 

That is all for now!  

Blessings,

Dawn

We're officially on Thanksgiving break!!    *insert gleeful dancing here*  I wasn't very focused this week on what I was doing.....honestly I was daydreaming far more than I should have about what I'll be able to get caught up on over our break.  Still, I managed to do official Tot School four days this week, with a very, very light 5th day.  So light I probably shouldn't even count it.....and yet I will.

Monday:

• ABC-123 page
• File folder game: Falling Leaves
• extra time with speech homework

Tuesday:

• File Folder Game:  Harvest Patterns
• Ladybug stickers on letter L page
• Classifying/sequencing:  Little to Large

Pictures from Tuesday:

"I did it!!" is what he's saying here.  This is the first time Peanut has been able to do an ABABA sequencing exercise and not have a problem with it.  He topped that stunt farther down the file folder by doing an AABBAA sequence!  We were all sooo excited!!

Little to Large.  These are from a pool noodle, they'll make great star paint stamps when we get to the letter S!!  Can't remember whose blog I swiped this from.  Whoever you are, I thank you.   Oh, and he's also letting all of you out there in blog-land how many stars he counted.

Little Ladybugs on the Letter L.

Wednesday:

• ABC-123 page
• Lacing blocks onto a shoestring (He finally figured out how to do this!)
• Apples: Little to Large

Pictures from Wednesday:

See the steely determination as he figures out how to get that little string through the hole. 

Sequencing apples, little to large.

Thursday:

• Handwriting Without Tears page
• Little Hands to Heaven page -- Letter review
• Make a Ladybug craft

Pictures from Thursday:

Friday:

• Played with play-doh
• Went to the river front park with cousins & got to visit with Aunt & Uncle we don't get to see very often......okay that was really mommy :)  Peanut played with his cousins.

Really, this was a great week for Peanut, and I didn't even realize it.  He was able to sequence from little to big, string the blocks onto string, and complete patterns he hadn't been able to do before.  Three things he's not accomplished before now.  I guess that's a nice perk of blogging all of these things.  With the business of this week, these accomplishments didn't stick out to me before.  What a nice way to begin our vacation.

Also this week, our little Peanut turned the big 0-5!  When did my baby boy get so old?  We celebrated with the necessary balloons:

Presents:

And his very favorite birthday cake:

Brandon and I made it to WA after a 4 hour plane delay. Sigh.. For those who don't know, about a week ago my mom fell and broke her ankle. She had surgery on Monday. They put in some hardware and she is not to put any weight on it at all for many many weeks.She is wheelchair bound for now.  Brandon and I came up to help take care of her and the house. She is doing much better than last week.  

I apologize for my previous post.  I wrote it half-serious and half tongue-in-cheek.   I am over my self-pity party now.  

Physically I am feeling a little better, and the sun is out today, so things are looking up.  I wonder if I should go get one of those lamps for people with Seasonal Affective Disorder?  My attitude really takes a dive when the sun is gone for 5 full days in a row. 

Ryan is feeling better as well.  No one else is complaining of an ailment at this moment, so perhaps we will be able to have a nice weekend. 

We are planning to go up to see Jeff's mom tomorrow.  If the weather cooperates, we may get to take a walk along the beach.  

Sunday after church we hope to put up our Christmas tree.  We've never put it up this early, but I knew it would make my husband really happy if we put it up early this year.  He's so into everything about Christmas. 

I hope you have a lovely weekend, whatever you are doing. 

Blessings,

Jenn