Thanksgiving Day 2023

David helped me prep the chili board for lunch!
Grandpa made the green pozole and Gramma made the red chili.
It was a hit!
The 1,000 piece puzzle finished at 12:15.
The next 1,000 piece puzzle started at 12:50!

Friends of ours—Scott and Wendy—also joined us this year as she was visiting from Seattle and they didn’t have other plans! She loves Thanksgiving and cooking so she brought most of the sides to go with Tom’s smoked turkey and smoked ham!

Thanksgiving tip? Gravy in an insulated pitcher! Pourable plus it stays warm!

Dinner is served!
We were all gathered around the kitchen for grace…and I looked over and both dogs were in the circle with us!
Three drinks going at once (water, rum punch, and wine)!
Helping clean up!

The evening was spent watching football, playing cards, puzzling, and visiting!

Stalemate!

Y’all remember my first chess game against Owen when he checkmated me in like three moves?

Well let me just say… Our second game ended in a stalemate!

His response? “Aw man that was the worst game I’ve ever played!”

Gee thanks buddy.

I told him I’m definitely not as good as he is but I can play.

No pic of the board because he packed that ish up right away. 😂

BrickFest was a dud.

We’ve been to a BrickFest before in Virginia and it was AMAZING. So we were excited to go again… Except this one was a complete dud compared to that. Super SUPER disappointing.

There were basically NO displays—the previous one had city blocks, automation (think roller coaster), big things, little things, selfie stations…

This one had some giant creations:

and a very small area of smaller creations like this:

but that was about it. Most of it was lame (for older kids) stuff like “make and race a Lego car”

or “create a glow in the dark Lego” (which Owen did to at least do something).

The kids also did one square of a bigger design—which we would never see.

But man did the store and checkout lines take up a ton of space (conservatively 1/4 of the venue):

This was the best part for me—a local artist who did lilacs. I’m going to need that ASAP.

What was even more disappointing is that we were supposed to go with Anna and family—but long story short they got there after us and got stuck in a huge line and then we discovered it sucked so they just gave up and never made it in.

After we got home I decided to look up the last one we went to…and discovered it wasn’t BrickFest, but was BrickFair. UGHHHHH.

Let the family festivities begin!

We excitedly volunteered to host the Schwalm side family thanksgiving this year—Filipeks usually host in Atlanta but they’ve recently downsized and didn’t have room. We had plenty of room for everyone (most even stayed with us—kicking the kids out of their rooms of course)!

Everyone had varied arrival times, but by Wednesday afternoon everyone was here! It makes my heart so happy to see my kids having fun with their cousins.

Puzzle #1
A little rest in some downtime.

Dinner for 21 is served! Charcuterie that takes up our entire kitchen island!

Cousins
Even family ends up gathering at the bar…I think we need stadium seating!

Well, it’s happened.

I tested positive this morning.

Thankfully it’s nothing too awful—a minor sore throat, a random cough, slight body aches (but that could just be me being old), and the worst is a nagging headache but it’s manageable with Excedrin. It really all just feels like an annoying cold. Vaccines and boosters for the win.

The kids feel fine. Tom has tested negative. And apparently dogs can get Covid so if I want to cuddle Olive I need to mask.

At least I have a cute cuddle buddy!

And Katie decided to get out Legos right here. For the first time ever.

I got this puzzle from Amazon Vine and it was a big fail.

We thought we were missing pieces after our first edge-piece sort so sorted again. And then again when we only found one additional piece. And a third time just because we couldn’t believe it. We talked about not even doing it, but it really was a fun and somewhat easy puzzle so we continued.

And this is what we ended up with. I didn’t even count the missing pieces because it was so crazy. Not just a piece. Not just an edge. But a ton of random pieces!! Sooo disappointing!

Needless to say it got a 1-star review.

There’s a first time for everything.
I’m guessing herein lies the issue: China.

Owen’s reward choice!

It’s really too cold to be walking around Pokémoning in Chicago, but it was Owen’s choice of rewards for bringing his grades up!

We walked around Millennium Park and finally saw the famous bean (we figure we’ve been here almost four years so it was about time). Unfortunately due to Covid it was all cordoned off so we couldn’t get up close and personal. We definitely want to go back when the weather is nicer.

We tried to eat dinner there but hadn’t made reservations (and weren’t about to wait an hour!) so we just started driving towards home and I found a place on Yelp for dinner so that was another fun mini adventure.

Both kids had a great time!

The VR rollercoaster kicked my butt.

I really wanted to try the VR rollercoaster and kind of laughed at Katie when she was trying it and saying she felt weird. We were watching it on the TV and it looked neat but nothing crazy.

Well.

Haha.

It was insane—totally different than watching it on the TV for sure. It really felt like you were on the rollercoaster. You could look over the side and see all the way down. You felt like you needed to turn your head as you went around curves. And then after that first drop it got nuts.

Logically I knew that I was standing in my living room. Logically I knew I was in no danger. But it really felt like I was falling and I was trying desperately to catch my balance.

I didn’t know they were recording me…but it shows how crazy I was feeling. I was not faking anything. And when I was done I was exhausted.

https://youtube.com/shorts/-bRQPbQtt0I

Katie’s room cleanout saga

So I forgot to mention…Katie’s room got fully cleaned out about a week ago.

We had given her chance after chance (after chance) to get it picked up even a little. No it didn’t have to be perfect…but I couldn’t even make it to her bed without stepping on who knows what so I was just D.O.N.E. done. We finally gave her the final ultimatum on a Friday night. We reminded her multiple times throughout the weekend. Reminded her she was going to lose everything if she didn’t make a dent.

She kept putting it off and putting it off. So Sunday afternoon I gave her one last chance. And when she decided that continuing to lay on the basement couch and do nothing was her best choice…it was time. I grabbed the roll of garbage bags and off I went.

There wasn’t much sorting—everything from the tops of her dressers got swept into a bag. Clothes from the floor? In a bag. Toys? Bag. She made it upstairs about three minutes behind me and I already had about two bags full.

She proceeded to sit on her bed and bawl. Not even making any move to, you know, pick anything up or put anything away.

“WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!” You know why. We’ve asked you to pick up your room for a month now. I reminded you all weekend and you didn’t do anything. We warned you what would happen—and you saw us do this to Owen’s room so you knew we were serious. This is happening because you made bad decisions.

Tom had been napping but all the drama woke him up, so then he started helping. I think it took us about 45 minutes to get it cleaned out. We did sort some stuff like Legos and took out a full bag of garbage. We found a pile of dishes. Innumerable candy wrappers. Clean clothes mixed with dirty clothes. And under everything? Horrible stains on the carpet that she had NO CLUE what it was from.

So this is about what it looked like when we were done. Bed, dressers, desk, chair, mirror, bookshelf with books, and some toys.

I wanted to take out more but I was mentally and physically exhausted. She was not happy that she lost her nightlight and Alexa. I told her if she had been that worried about it, she should have picked it up.

And then, for as upset as she was, after we were done, she was downstairs laughing and having fun with Owen. Like nothing ever happened.

Fast forward to the next day and I don’t remember exactly what triggered it, but I’m sure it was a combination of her sassy I-can’t-believe-she’s-not-a-teenager mouth and more bad behavior… after I spent the entire day trying to get those unknown stains up and failing…but I went up again and removed even more stuff. She lost the makeup mirror, most of her books, more toys, and anything that was on the floor (you thought she’d have learned that lesson, but no).

In the end, I had taken out about the equivalent of 10 garbage bags. Here it all is stacked in the guest room.

And you know what? She really doesn’t give two craps about any of it. She hasn’t asked for any of it back…except for her Alexa.

She knows why she lost it. She knows she has to earn it back.

I have made her do all the laundry we pulled out—but it all goes back in the guest room (she was allowed to pick two pieces per load to keep).

We’ve told her she can earn some other things back but she hasn’t even cared enough to attempt that. This includes Christmas presents she just got!

Of course her job is to keep her room picked up now—which shouldn’t be hard because it’s literally empty, right? Ha. She still manages to have her floor almost covered every day.

So we have no idea what’s going to happen. Do we just really get rid of everything? Make her sort through it? Make her earn stuff back?

Sigh.