Purview from the Prairie

Wow! I can't believe it has been over two weeks since I last posted, but then again, I've been raising kitties and not getting much sleep! Moxie didn't make it, as I expected, but so far, the other three are hanging in there.

Mom was in last week for her birthday...we mainly just toodled around, did some shopping at the Houston Ballet's Nutcracker Market (or Bankcracker Market as my husband likes to call it) and then, on Friday, before she returned home, we helped Gracie's class make pumpkin bread and turkey pinecones...

I was too busy poring and stirring to take pictures of us making our pumpkin bread, but we put each child's portion in a rinsed-out vegetable can and it worked perfectly! This is Gracie's teacher placing them all in the oven.

While the pumpkin bread was baking, we made turkey pinecones - Gracie and Skylar working their magic!

There's Marmie's group making turkey pinecones, too!

A fun game of "Hot Potato" (or in this case, "Hot Pumpkin") to close out the week...
Gracie was runner-up!

Then, on Sunday, we took Gracie to see her first Cirque du Soleil performance, Alegria. No cameras were allowed, but you can see some footage here from youtube. This is the first show I saw, too, about ten years ago, and I remember how fascinated and awe-struck I was and that's exactly how she was. The show is about two hours long (excluding intermission) and she was too excited to sit in her own seat, so she went back and forth between Jack and I. I actually felt her shaking at times. Her favorites were all of the mid-air events like the swinging and trapeze acts. We were on the floor in the third row and in the video where you see the wind and all of the bits of white paper flying...that was happening to us, too, since we were so close. That was her "next favorite".

This week, I've been catching up on my chores and trying to get the house in order for our annual Thanksgiving Family Feast. We're getting so excited to see everyone and are preparing to let our belts out a notch or two...yum!

Last but not least, we've made plans to take Gracie on a Santa excursion the day she gets out for her Christmas vacation from school, just as we did last year. We went to Palestine for the Polar Express train ride last year. This year, we're venturing a tiny bit further and taking her to Grapevine for the North Pole Express train ride and the ICE! and SNOW! exhibits at the Gaylord Texan. We're squeezing in a lot for just an overnight trip, but we know she'll have a good time (and she'll have a whole two weeks of school holiday to recover!)...now, that's a party!

Given this latest posting hiatus, I'm going to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving now...we wish you all safe travels, a full belly and the beloved company of family and friends...Cheers to making happy memories!