Thanksgiving this year was a lot of fun. It was our first time celebrating one of the big holidays on our own! Although we missed our families, it was nice to do our own thing and have a low key holiday.

Since we didn’t have any company coming for dinner, we (I) decided it was the right year to try a vegan Thanksgiving. Poor Jonathan was not very happy about it, but he went along with it to keep the peace. We limit our meat consumption anyway, but recently I’ve been cutting back on animal products as much as possible. I don’t think Jonathan really thought I’d go through with it, but I bought the Tofurkey and remained adamant I did not want to see a bird a the table this year. Avery was on board – he can’t stand the sight of an animal carcass.

So how did it go? Well personally, I think Thanksgiving dinner is all about the sides, and those were fabulous. But don’t worry family, we won’t serve Tofurkey again. For the record, I am glad we tried it!

Our trio of boys – they’re so cute!

Our thankful trees. We each wrote something we are thankful for on a leaf and put it on our tree everyday. A fun tradition.




I love the way Si is looking at Kieron in this picture. He loves his big brothers!

Our Tofurkey.

Kieron helping in the kitchen.

At the table. Kieron sported his Indian hat, Avery wore a turkey hat.

Kieron LOVES sparkling cider! He was hitting it pretty hard!

Wow, it’s the end of December! Life got really busy over the holidays, so I suspended blogging for a while and now it’s catch-up time. The following pictures pretty much sum up November leading up to Thanksgiving.
 
Here’s a cute shot of the boys with their friend, Wiktor. They were snacking on goldfish and watching Mr. Bean.

Wiktor’s little brother, Fryderyk (a few weeks younger than Silas)

Election Day – Silas sported Avery’s shirt from four years ago



Here’s our new 5th District State Senator, Mark Mullet, delivering his victory speech! We spent election night at his party at Zeek’s Pizza in Issaquah. Lucky for us, it was a dang good night! 😉

The boys playing tic-tac-toe together


Kieron grinding walnuts for banana nut bread

Silas watching and snacking on puffs

Dumping the flour

A dance party/wrestling match (sometimes the lines get pretty blurry)

Si with Daddy and gorilla

Coloring

Mid November Jonathan went to see Ben Gibbard (lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service) at Washington Hall . We originally had tickets to see him together, but I came down with pneumonia. You know I was feeling really bad since I missed this concert!

One of Avery’s creations


The boys helping bake a pie


Si’s cute smile!


Love those lashes!

It was a fun Halloween this year, as always. Auntie Ashleigh and her boyfriend, Mark, came over for the week. It was so much fun to visit with them, and wonderful to have a couple extra sets of hands to help out. On Halloween they passed out candy with Silas while Jonathan and I took Avery and Kieron trick-or-treating.

We had visions of the brothers sweetly walking hand in hand to each door, but that’s not exactly how it went down. How naive of us! Avery was chomping at the bit to get from house to house, and Kieron just wasn’t fast enough to keep up. His firefighter hat kept slipping off, so he insisted on carrying it, along with his bag, which got increasingly heavy and difficult to lift. He wore firefighter rain boots, which made walking up porches precarious, so I spent most of the evening assisting him to the houses safely and slowly. Avery eventually met up with his buddy, Hayden, and they gleefully raced from house to house collecting candy and having sword/light saber fights in between. Jonathan took pictures and made sure Avery didn’t stray too far. As expected, Kieron tuckered out before Avery, so he and I headed home first. By the time we got to the house, there was a hole in his bag from being drug on the ground! Fortunately, no candy escaped. The boys each got to pass out a little candy at home before it was time for bed. The next day I offered to buy some back from them for a nickel a piece. They each earned $1.10 for their piggy banks and still had a lot (mostly chocolate) leftover. All in all, a successful holiday and many fun memories made!

Our pirate, monkey & firefighter



About to head out the door for trick-or-treating

Avery with his buddy, Hayden/Darth

Below is a random collection of photographs from this fall. I can’t help laughing looking through them. Our boys sure are silly, and a ton of fun to boot!

The boys waiting at the bus stop on the first day of school

Someone’s happy it’s meal time!





“Well excuse me!”


Silas in his towel

It doesn’t take long before his big brothers are beside him


One day when Avery was coloring, he asked me “Mommy, how do you spell Kieron?” So I helped him sound it out, and then when I came over to see what he’d made, it was the sign below. “Kieron” is on the bottom with a red X through it. There are also illustrations about keeping out. Wow, how sweet. Too bad Kieron doesn’t read. 😉

We had a visit from Grammy and Papa.


Their shirts don’t lie. They really make a ton of noise!

Avery eating more corn. “I will get this tooth out, I will!”

Silas teething. “I will get these teeth through, I will!”


Avery and Kieron are getting better at playing cooperatively together. Here’s proof:

Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub!

And on a couch

The many expressions of Silas:

This is his “blue steel”