Happy Thanksgiving!

 Thanksgiving weekend was awesome. The kids were up late 3/4 days, so that has made for some epic grumpies, but other than that we've had lots of fun and lots of productivity!

On Friday my parents asked if they could take the kids overnight for a sleepover. We dropped them off Friday afternoon and they came back home on Saturday around 11. We had date night on Friday, which means very different things to Dave and I haha. After dropping them off Dave, Eva and I went to IKEA with a generous gift card we got from Greg & Liz, our realtors/David's clients. We used the gift card to redo the kids' closet and overhaul their room organization. After some fun shopping, we ordered Cactus Club takeout and Eva napped in the car while we got that and took it home. We then realized that we forgot to take the garage door opener out of the van, so we were locked out of the house. Eva was poopy and hungry, so Dave dropped her and I off and I sat in the backyard and dealt with her while he went and picked up our garage door opener. We have since traded keys with our neighbours so that this won't happen again!

Waiting for Daddy to come home. Glad I happened to have a sweater in the diaper bag!

We finally got in and ate our (now cold) dinner and had some beer. Eva went to bed and I was straight to the business of getting that dresser out of their closet and setting up their new shelves! We don't have a lot of space in their little closet, and it was very poorly utilized before. We also had a 6 foot IKEA Hemnes TV stand in their room which was a play table and had their jammies and dress up clothes in it. Very awkward and bulky set up. I cannot for the life of me find a proper "before" photo of their room or the closet. That's unfortunate. I can assure you, it was awful. 

We got one shelf built and set up, and I finally succumbed to Dave's attitude of "this isn't date night" so we went and played a game and had some beer and got back to the bedroom set up the next morning while Eva was napping! We got rid of the TV stand, dresser and little pink table. We moved the firehouse and put the toy box (THE toy box from when I was a kid. I think it was my mom's hope chest when she was younger too) in the spot behind their bed. It's full of toys they haven't seen in a while so that's fun. Where the TV stand was, we brought up the little white IKEA shelves with little buckets from downstairs that had all their lego and playmobil and stuff in them. That way they're far away from Eva when she starts crawling. 

Game of choice - Crib Wars! I lost. This entire board and I was stinkholed :(

We also discovered that Eva can stand... What the heck. She has excellent balance for a 5.5 month old!

Felt so good to be productive! Maybe not what Dave had in mind when he heard my parents were taking the kids, but my mind went to, "What can I get done now that I can't do while they're home?" Haha. No regrets, and they're very excited about their room and play better in there and Dom stays in quiet time longer. Their clothes are accessible and the space feels much bigger. 

No before pictures of the closet, but you can see how crowded their bedroom was sort of. TV stand on the left, awkward pink table by the window, firehouse in the corner.

Yes, it's cleaner, but there really is a lot more space!

10 minutes after the kids get home and pull everything out haha. At least everything has a spot so it's way easier to clean up!

After of their closet. I didn't take anything out except for my wedding dress. Everything is just put in a proper spot! So exciting!

All Emilia's clothes. Oh I just remembered we also got rid of the big bulky portable AC that was in their room. It's off to storage for the winter. 

Kids came home, so all the toy box toys came out. You can see all those buckets in the background now. That's where the huge TV stand was. So much cleaner and so much more floor space!

She's a goober

I'm standing up on the toy box. The chair beside the firehouse is breaking so it will either be reupholstered or replaced. Dom uses it every single quiet time, so for now it shall stay!

After quiet time we packed everyone up and went back to Mom & Dad's for our Thanksgiving dinner! We were missing Scott, Ashleigh, and Phoebe, but everyone else was there. Instead of doing a turkey, we had roast chicken with all the turkey trimmings! We had good wine, enjoyed good company, and by some miracle, the three babies that were there were all asleep when dinner started. Eva woke up while we were eating, but she sat and goobered it up in the high chair seat at the table while we finished. We put Eva to bed there and let the kids stay up late. We finally left around 830 and got the kids to bed. That was late night #2 after their sleepover the night before. 

Dom was on Myles patrol. Dom's a rule follower, and Myles is a very curious little man, so there was lots of, "No Myles! Be careful! Stay away from the dishwasher!" etc. 

"I bet I could get that bow in my mouth before she can escape"

Precious little 6 week old Owen

And a family photo where 4/5 of us are smiling, our eyes are all open and looking at the camera! Thanks, Aly!

Eva showing off her new standing tricks

When did she become so smiley?! She used to be the most serious one of the bunch.

These best buddies in their fancy dinner clothes keeping each other entertained with some books while Owen slept in the play room.

It wasn't discussed, but Dave was voluntarily on full parenting duty that evening! It was so nice not to have to worry about anyone and just enjoy myself. I was able to temporarily turn off the mom brain that can only half-engage with things because 60% of my brain is on the kids still.

Myles enjoying a glass of the house white

I mean COME ON!!! Also... Emilia tells me this is how she smiled for her preschool school photos and I cannot wait to see them. If that's the case, they're getting framed for sure! haha

He's so handsome <3

Sunday was a home day for the most part. I ran some errands and popped by the church in the morning where I got to meet Kerriann's littlest, Blake! She's so precious and gorgeous. She also fell asleep on my shoulder so that's a win. 

The rest of the day we did some more orgamanizing (can you tell I love that), and Dave took the big kids out to run some errands so I had some time with just Eva to get things done! I got both the kids' halloween costumes figured out already too which is a record for me! I normally like to put things together myself and craft/DIY most of the costume, but this year it was much simpler to just go with the store bought kind. I bring you... dinosaur and Elsa. It was very nice to take a break that day because...

Not like any dinosaur I've ever seen, but it's fun, it's warm, and it was $10 on marketplace. 

We're just borrowing this Elsa costume, but she now says, "I just love my new Elsa dress. I just want to wear it for all of the days for ever and ever!" The crown was added by her. I kind of like the upside down crown... like a visor.

Instead of giving away the dresser that was in the kids' closet, we decided to put it in our room for Dave's clothes. Dave was using a tiny 3 drawer dresser in the closet and his clothes did not fit at all. This makes much more sense and it doesn't bother us as much as I thought it would. Just pretend my side of the bed isn't a disaster. Things always get messier before they get neat. Actually... I just remembered I took this photo after Emilia had her quiet time in our room. I came in and it was cleaner than we left it and she had made the bed haha. Thanks girl!

Mommy purgest and organizes the closet while she plays blocks on the bed! Peekaboo happiest baby! <3

Emilia was here. Not once has Dom ever used the firehouse characters and furniture "properly". Here I see two offices set up, two cars appropriately parked, and two guys lying down on the job.

She's seriously changed so much just over this weekend. Suddenly standing on her own (holding on to a toy or something), and sitting unassisted for longer and longer periods of time. Crazy creature.

Monday we had our Kimber Thanksgiving! I did some reflecting on all that I have to be thankful for, and prepped a thanksgiving loaf of sourdough for dinner. We arrived in Abbotsford at Rachel & Kyle's at 4. We hardly saw Dom, Emilia and Rebecca the whole evening. They were off giggling and galavanting up in the play room most of the time. Eva had a nap and then went to bed there with zero issues at all. Everything went so smoothly. I was in shock! 

Dinner was later than anticipated, but everything was delicious! Afterwards we stayed late and hung out, caught up, and laughed til we cried. (Or maybe that was just me with the laughter tears streaming down my face). 

Little Evie Eves making the rounds!

Emilia telling Aunty Rachel all about how she was getting plates and forks and knives and setting up the kids table (or something)

The kids table

Cheers!

Group shot!

It also happened to be Rachel's birthday yesterday, so Rebecca requested we wear party hats!

We heard some little voices singing from upstairs, "IT'S RAINING HAY! IT'S RAINING HAYYYYY!" Poor Bowie... She's got her work cut out for her eating all that hay!

Eva was fast asleep upstairs and we were approaching time to leave. The kids were delirious I think, but I remember being their age and making memories on "late nights" like this with my cousins. So fun!

The moment that had me in tears laughing. Grandpa's hat had a door. For some reason it just struck my funny bone and I had to document it. 

It was a wonderful weekend, filled with so much to be thankful for! Last year Thanksgiving was our last family gathering before COVID shut everything down again and we had to do Zoom Christmases. I'm glad we're all vaccinated this year and can hopefully have a more normal Christmas. 

Oh also... Thank you Busy Toddler for the brilliant craft idea! This one even kept Dom, my anti-crafty activity guy, busy for at least 45 minutes.

First, put on a movie for the kids so I can be a perfectionist with the tape...

Then pour the paints and try not to micromanage!

I gave them both the exact same colours in the same order. It is funny to me to see how the pick their colours. Dom goes for dark blues/greens/black/brown. Emilia gravitates to the red/pink/orange/yellow, with a touch of green and white.

D wasn't up for a photo today, but here's Emilia's finished product! Super cool :)

Blogs take a long time to write... I did this one and missed my yoga today :(

However, I still love using it as a journal and looking back on it in the future! Yoga... tomorrow!