Gobble Gobble!!

After realizing last year how grueling it was to travel to and from the east coast with kids, twice in one month, we stayed home for Thanksgiving this year.  We invited some friends and family and Marc ended up traveling to London for the holiday for work, so it ended up being a unique, but fantastic day.

Everyone brought their favorite side dish or two, and I cooked the turkey, gravy and desserts.  The turkey took a little longer than I'd planned, but except for being an hour late, dinner was delicious!!

Free subway art from 18twentyfive, popped in an old frame

Gotta love free decorations.

This $20 scratch and dent clearance chalkboard frame from Homegoods always comes in handy.

So easy to change out seasonally with a sponge and a chalk marker!

Molly was in charge of place cards.  She rocked them!

Tablescape made of stuff I had lurking in my basement.

I may have a small hoarding problem with it comes to fall decorations.

But nothing beats a wreath with a hurricane lamp in it as a centerpiece.  It's been my go-to for years, even back 14 years to my sister's wedding shower!

Hoarding Problem : I mean really, how many funkins does one family need?

(trick question - the answer in my world is that you can NEVER have too many funkins!!)

Like I said the food was amazing!

Ulia brought sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes and a huge pan of home-baked rolls so delicious that they made the turkey look like an amateur.  Emily brought sweet potato casserole and a "modern riff on the string bean casserole" that made me wish it was thanksgiving every day.

I did my infamous (in my circle of twelve) puffed butternut squash and crucified my mom's broccoli-cheese casserole (apparently I used the wrong baking dish, but it was the only one I had left at that point!)

And for dessert I made my infamous Pumpkin Cheesecake with Caramel Swirl.

My little helpers and I put together a trifle with chocolate cake, 

chocolate pudding, cool whip and crushed up candy cane Joe Joe's.

We crushed the Joe Joe's the old fashioned way.

But honestly, the day isn't about the decor, or even about the food.  Like any good holiday, Thanksgiving is about the PEOPLE you share it with!

The headwear is courtesy of the Target Dollar Spot circa 2009.  The September before Ben's 1st birthday I saw them there, and passed them by, intending to go back to get them as favors.  But when I did they were GONE.  Not to return for a whole year.  You bet your hippy that the next September, I bought all of them.  Every single one.  Ben will be turning 50 and I'll still have some to spare I bought so many.  But can you blame me?  I mean, look at how cute this little turkey below is and tell me you wouldn't have bought them all too!

"Who you calling a Turkey?" 

He is so going to love me for this.  Sorry little bro!  I had to do it!

She made me give her a job to do.  She flat out refused to put her feet up and let us cater to her.

34 weeks Thanksgiving Day - yay for babies-on-the-way!

For Mel, and anyone else who wants to know, the sweater is from SEARS of all places, the boots from DSW and the jeans from Express.  The sweater is amazing!  It can be worn open as a swing coat, or the two front corners can be snapped up to make a humongous cowl.  Which is excellent for hiding a pouchy muffin top - or on this day, turkey top, lol!  They had it in black and white too.

We sure did miss Marc, and I definitely noticed his absence in the working part of the holiday.

So if I ever complain that he doesn't help enough (not that I would ever do that!), I would be wrong, because it was way harder doing the prep work alone.

But once everyone arrived, many hands made light work!

I even recruited Dan to make the Thankful Tree I was dreaming of but never had time for.

And then we ate our faces off,

cleaned dishes until the place was gleaming

(who knew cleanup can be fun when you all pitch in together?)

and went outside to plug in the Christmas lights for their inaugural run

as we said goodbye to all our friends and family.

Thanksgiving in Illinois was pretty awesome 

anyone else want to join us next year?

The door is always open!!

A Superhero Photo Shoot & yet ANOTHER Birthday Party!

What do YOU do when you should be wrapping Christmas presents two days before Christmas (because you haven't wrapped a single one yet)?  Well, at our house, we (meaning *I*) procrastinate!!  So I'm blogging in protest that there is no pause button in December.  I just need one extra week, is that so much to ask?  

But I promised superheroes and superheroes I shall deliver!!  Knowing that Ben adores all superheroes everywhere, and knowing that he was turning four and I wanted to take pictures of him to celebrate who he is at this very moment in his lifetime...well I had an IDEA.  I then figured that someone else probably had this idea before me, hopefully a professional photographer, and Pinterest made a love connection with some photos that unfortunately, were not credited to anyone.

I knew I'd be using my glasses, and I knew I wanted a Superman t-shirt that had a "4" instead of an "S".  I never did find one, so in a pinch, I printed out the logo from his preschool party applesauce cups onto sticker paper, and stuck it to a plain t shirt.  The rest is stuff we had that I grabbed and ran with.  

The BEST part is that he totally got into it.  He never missed a beat and completely transformed himself, body mind and soul into Superman.  I videotaped the whole thing it was so much fun, only I have no idea how to upload that, so you'll just have to trust my commentary.

"Um, excuse me, but do you think I'm Clark Kent?"

"Because I have a secret"

"Actually, I'm..."

"...I'm really SUPERMAN"

We did this over and over and OVER again.  At one point, just when I was ready to rock with the camera, he ripped off all of his accessories and told me that there was someone who needed help and he was sorry, but he HAD to go.  He was Superman after all.

I'm dead serious.  This kid's acting abilities are no joke.

Here are some of my favorites...

At one point, I remembered another extra special set of Clark Kent-ish specs in my hope chest.

They were my Grandfather's, circa God knows when (1980-something)

He died November 19th 1989, and 22 years later, his great-grandson got to celebrate his 4th birthday with them.  It was kind of like Papa was there with us in a way.

As soon as the button-down was off, on went the cape, and our hero sprang into action!

We wanted to share the superhero fun with Ben's friends.  And I had some pretty bad mommy guilt that this little one had never had his own birthday party.  It wasn't a big deal before, but this year he'd attended Molly and Jack's parties and hadn't stopped talking about when he'd have his party.

So even though I got waylaid by Thanksgiving, and probably should have bagged the idea altogether, I threw together a superhero "playdate" for all of his buddies.  We'd have a snack, do a craft, and play with the ridiculous amount of superhero stuff Ben has accumulated the past few years. 

Here's how it came together...

My cousin's fabulous wife Jill told me about Paperless Post, and they had the PERFECT e-vitation for Ben's party.

I reallllly wanted each child to have their own superhero cape.   I didn't want to spend a lot of money and I had very little time, but when I saw this tutorial I knew I could make it work.  

I went to the Goodwill Thrift Store and spent $15 on brand new men's t-shirts, one for each child.  

 I cut from the hem on each bottom corner, up to the edge of the neck seam, and then cut carefully around the front part of the neckband.  What you're left with is a perfect t-shirt cape that the kids can stretch over their own heads, as our model demonstrates...

I made one for each guest, and it took less than an episode of House Hunters to cut them all up.

I attached them to ribbon using binder clips and strung them like a garland over the fireplace mantel.  These gems did triple duty;  Decoration, Party Favor, and Craft Project all rolled into one!

To make them work as our craft project, and to customize them for each child,  I bought sticky-backed felt ($0.99 each at Hobby Lobby) and cut it into each hero's initial.

I also cut shapes to use as hero emblems.

Then our superheroes just needed to choose a cape and deck it out in their favorite symbols.  The mom's peeled the sticker backs off and stuck them onto the fabric and voila!  Instant custom cape.  For about $1.50 each, you can't go wrong!

Our favorite mini-hero came to the party too!

SUPER-CAM!!

I couldn't in good conscience have a superhero party and then dope the kids up with sugary treats and junk food, so I fancied up some healthy snacks to try and make them more "party-worthy". 

Hero H20

(I printed the image out on sticker paper and stuck it over the regular label)

Carrot-Zucchini-Pineapple-Whole-Wheat Muffins with cream cheese frosting, from my friend Emily's recipe for Good Morning Muffins. 

String Cheese.  Food of champions.

And grape kabobs.  Because everything tastes better on a stick. 

I'd say we had an 80% success rate.  When you're dealing with superheroes, they have sixth senses about things.  And a few of them sensed that there was chicanery afoot.

 Then it was time to open presents!  Usually, I prefer to wait until after the party to open gifts, because then I can make sure to properly document who gave what, and if there's a gift that is not as appreciated by it's receiver as it should be, I don't have to worry that something honest-but-not-necessarily-kind will  be said.  How I wish we could get by without presents at all!  Maybe someday, but NOT today, since the gifts turned out to be Kryptonite for our little superhero.

He was so excited for the party, that I honestly think he'd forgotten about gifts, until the first guest handed him one.  He was so absurdly obsessed with opening them RIGHTNOW!!!!! That I had to lock them in the office and tolerate kicks, punches, pinches and tears trying to convince me that they needed to be opened RIGHTNOW!!!!!!

So we opened them.

And God bless those moms, because every single gift was a home run.  Ben has played his guts out with every single one since that day...though I have no idea who gave which since it was a preschooler free-for-all with wrapping paper flying everywhere!  After Christmas I'll think up some nice wording for his Thank You cards that hopefully will suffice.  These kiddos made my little superhero VERY happy.  He's always getting short shrift, but not this day.

Speaking of getting short shrift...when Ulia and Cameron came to the door partway through the party, I was surprised to see my brother with them.

Turns out he'd taken the day off of work because it was Ulia's ACTUAL birthday.  Which I'd completely forgotten.  Because I'm the most awful sister in law in all of Chicagoland.

But somehow I am also the LUCKIEST sister in law in all of Chicagoland, because my brother married the Queen of Sister In Laws, who forgave me completely and made me feel almost like I didn't even stink half as much as I do.

Thank you, Ulia, for selflessly sharing your birthday, and for being much kinder than I deserve.  One of these days, I'll figure out how to juggle all the balls at once - party planning, date-remembering, etc.  These days, I'm lucky if I get to lunch without one of them falling on my head.

Baby steps...