Wednesday night we had to scrounge up some pj’s for Nolan.  I was a tad behind on laundry, so his “normal” pajamas were still in the dirty laundry pile.  We made due with sport pants and a Twins shirt.  Not to be left out, Lincoln “requested” a t-shirt of his own.  Actually, he requested one of Nolan’s and we put it over his sleeper.  He was SO proud of the fact that he was wearing the Corn Dog shirt.  It’s a Sheck boy favorite.

Thursday was Thanksgiving Day.  Nolan and I worked on a special project Wednesday afternoon & Thursday morning.  We made turkeys using an outline of his hand and finger paint prints of his fingers.  He had a lot of fun gluing on the beaks, “gobblers,” googly-eyes, and feathers.  After the glue dried, I had him decorate the place settings at the table.  He was pretty proud!

We hosted my family and our friends Teri & Nate for Thanksgiving dinner.  My parents brought the main course (turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing & gravy,) I put together a couple of side dishes (the token green bean casserole and squash & apple dish I made a couple of weeks ago,) Tony brought fruit salad, and Teri made two delicious desserts.  We dined with a couple of pilgrims who gobbled up the food on their plates like old Turkey Day pros.  It was really nice to spend the day with family.

Can you tell they’re brothers?  Lincoln has started smiling the way his big brother does.  Both of them really know how to ham it up for the camera.

After Thanksgiving dinner I made the mistake of drinking two cups of coffee (with lots of flavored creamer.)  The kids went to bed at 7 & 9.  Jake did the same around midnight or so and I was up until 3AM!  When I laid my head down at 3, I laid awake for another hour.  It was ridiculous.  I don’t know what I was thinking putting that much caffeine into my body so late in the day.  Lesson learned…the hard way.

Friday we spent some time at Larissa’s apartment.  She had a group of us over to swim in her pool.  It was a tad on the chilly side, so we didn’t stay in the water long.  We gave the boys a warm bath to raise their body temps and then had pizza for lunch followed by ice cream sundaes.  Yum!  Jake then took the kids home for a nap while I went in to the office for a few hours.  When I got home, we put the kids to bed and went out in the porch for a while.  Not much was on TV on Friday night; somehow we ended up on QVC.  I ended up making my first purchase thanks to the TV pitchpeople.  (I didn’t call in though – I made the purchase online.)  I’ve been looking for sleeping bags for the boys’ Santa presents and found the perfect ones on QVC.  Who would have thought?  And not only are they sleeping bags, but they’re sleeping bags with cots!  So as the boys get bigger and we’re able to bring the cots with when we travel, the kids won’t have to make camp on the hard (and nasty) hotel floor.  Thanks QVC!

On Saturday we made the annual trip to Menards to pick up our Christmas tree.  We thought about going to a tree farm to cut one down this year, but I think we’ll wait a bit longer before we go on that adventure.  At this point, the kids are more excited about just getting the tree inside the house and decorating it.  Down the road when they’re able to enjoy seeking out the “perfect” tree, we’ll head to the tree farm.  Until then, Menards will bring the tree selection to us.  We convinced the kids to take a nap after we got the tree home, telling them we’d decorate it if they napped.  It worked perfectly.  We all got some much needed sleep and then later in the evening, enjoyed hanging lights and decorations.  We put the tree in the porch so little fingers can’t get to it unless they’re monitored.  Thanks to the former owners of our house, some of the outlets in the porch are on a switch that is in the toy room.  So even though they can’t get up close to the tree without mom or dad, the boys can turn the lights on and off by themselves – it’s perfect.

Having two little boys in the house means we build a lot of forts.  Sunday afternoon was no different.  The card table we used on Thursday was still in the living room, so we covered it with a sheet and then placed the kids’ hut next to it to extend the width of the fort.  Jake crawled in to see if he would fit.  😉 His feet stuck out one end and his head peered out the other.  Being the helpful toddler, Lincoln checked on his daddy and then proceeded to try to rescue him by pulling on Jake’s head.