Marriage and Motherhood: Happy Thanksgiving and the First Day of December!

Let me forewarn you, this post will be very photo heavy. It has been a fun-filled week of festivities with Thanksgiving and the first day of December all rolled up in one week! :) Because I have so many photos this week, I'm going to try and just get through them chronologically. Let me apologize in advance if the photos don't flow well through the post.

Baby is a little bundle of laughs these days. She continues to prefer her feet bare, but it's getting chilly around here, so I continue to put socks on her tiny toes and she continues to do this…no matter what she happens to be doing…like nursing...

…playing with blocks...

…putting it over her head…with her tiny tiny arms. ;)

…and showing me the sock she just pulled off of her foot.

I love these tiny toes.

I've been setting up little "social" activities for her with some toys to see how she does…we don't have much interaction with other babies other than her big sisters…

Since she has gotten more mobile lately, she loves crawling over to any and all beings she can get access to (which is usually all of us because we are floor people) and leaning on us, crawling on us, pulling up to stand on us. When she does this, though, she sometimes gets...

…mauled.

Other times, she gets "dressed up"…but she enjoys it. Most of the time. :)

These two fall asleep together a lot lately. Mainly because I'm usually wedged between those two when they can't fall asleep and they have to make a Rosa-sandwich in order to get to sleep. Luckily, they're both very adorable, and they make me smile.

Meal times are very exciting, too. I'm not thrilled about the chaos at every meal time these days, but it lends to some amusement. Here, Ri is picking up the Cheerios dropped (thrown) by Rea.

Here, Rea is looking for any other Cheerios that might not have been picked up by Ri.

After the older two finish their breakfast, they usually come around to help "feed" the baby.

I'm not sure why she does this when she's being fed...

…but she does it quite frequently. ;) But she does eat. :)

My silly girls.

The older sisters are trying to entertain the baby…sometimes it doesn't work, but when the big girls giggle, the littlest one giggles, too. How could she not?

This week, we played some more "active" indoor games because they were feeling a little cooped up with the weather getting colder. We played "throw the ball in the bucket." We had all different sizes and shapes of balls, and they got pretty good! I think we'll have to do this activity more often.

Look at that overhand throw!

Here she is throwing a balloon as hard as she could…that was one of our "balls" to get in the bucket.

Here they are racing by holding a small ball between their legs. This was HILARIOUS because they kept dropping the balls and they couldn't stop giggling because it looked like they were "pooping" out the balls because they would pop out the back of their legs…the written description just doesn't do it justice.

Ah yes, here's my handsome man prepping the turkey for Thanksgiving!

Here's my precious daughter feeding her hard-working daddy some of the leftover spaghetti in the pot...

…as she sneaks bites of it herself.

Here is the little one examining the blocks bucket.

She played it like a drum for a while...

…and switched up hands and held it as she drummed some more.

She chewed on the strap a while, too.

Our first snow…I took the photos as I went out to go pick up the girls from school.

What my vehicle looked like.

When we got home, Tay decided she was going to go play outside in the snow. :)

Here's what it looked like the next morning - our pond.

She's back outside to play in the snow some more! Swinging…in the freezing cold.

While Unni was outside playing in the snow, here's what the littles were doing inside. Ri was talking to Rea and Rea actually responded a few times by shaking and nodding her head, and this is the face that Ri made:

Hahahaha…

Since we had snow a few days this week, the girls really wanted to walk to school in it. I was happy to do so to reduce the amount of time spent on slick roads in a car.

The girls look so cute all bundled up.

Look at them! Puffy coats and all.

This is what my car window looked like…frosted over beautifully. I think I need to start parking in the garage.

One morning, I made the girls some warm honey tea to go with their breakfast. Ri decided to put her Cheerios into her tea…and eat it with a spoon.

Why she thought it was funny, I don't know. But, when I looked at her and asked what she was doing, I got this cute little face with a shrug.

Look at that smile!

On Thanksgiving morning, here's what the girls were doing while Jeff and I ran around finishing up the food preparations for the evening. Since there is no "Thanksgiving" in Germany, the girls still had school that day, so we scheduled the guests to arrive after 5pm after their school got out.

The girls did some playing in the playroom, too, before they headed off to school.

After the girls left for school, Ri was left alone watching us run around.

She did get a snack to gnaw on…? I can't remember when this picture was taken, but it happened to fall in the middle of Thanksgiving preparations. Hm...

What it looked like outside on Thanksgiving morning.

Now, on with the Thanksgiving festivities! First, we made two different types of cranberry sauce. The first one here was a chutney. It was a favorite of both Jeff and me. Strangest ingredient? Onion. Spectacular with the turkey.

This one was a more standard cranberry sauce, but very apple-y. Still delicious.

Jarred them up for Thanksgiving day.

Sweet potato casserole getting prepared.

Pumpkin muffins.

I had some extra batter left over, so I made pumpkin donuts.

All piled up in a bowl.

Apples sliced for the pie.

Trimmed green beans for the green bean casserole.

Apple pies. One for the big group, one small one for one of our guests who couldn't make it because he was called in to work.

Baked!

Green bean casserole…tried a new recipe using potato chips as a topping. It was okay. I'd still go with the "fried onions" next time.

Greek salad. YUM.

Ah, here are the two cranberry sauces in their serving bowls.

Pretty.

I'm not sure why this pie picture is here, but it's pretty small, no?

And last, but definitely the main star of the dinner, the smoked turkey:

The spread. In the big pumpkin pot is the sausage, potato, and kale soup (a la The Pioneer Woman).

…and just a couple of our guests serving themselves. I wanted to get a group photo, but it completely slipped my mind. We had two lovely families join us, and we all ate until we were stuffed and the kids had a great time, too! I forgot to take photos of the other desserts - Jeff's famous banana pudding and fudge.

Here's why the kids had a great time. :) Bounce castle in the attic!

And…just to keep it real…here's the aftermath. This took me about five dishwashing sessions to get caught up. I now have no motivation to clean for the next five days.

We held out as long as we could to put up Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving, but we decided to put up some lights outside on the day of Thanksgiving. It made it look so festive!

Ah, back to the kids. Here's Ri wearing her "crown."

The littles playing Schnip-Schnap…

…kinda.

Hahaha...

Here's Ri stopping Rea from crawling off the mat…effective? Not really.

After the girls went off to school the day after Thanksgiving, Jeff and I decided to check out our first Christmas Market!

This Market was set up in Regensburg in the castle grounds.

Lovely little sleigh on display.

Pretty, large Christmas tree set up in the center.

Tiny "trikes?" for sale.

And little tractors, too! Aren't they adorable???

See the crown on top of the castle?

Enjoying something warm to warm us up at the Christmas Market. :)

Helping daddy get the Christmas tree out of the box.

Tay getting all the ornaments out and ready for hanging on the tree.

Ri trying "on" her stocking.

The tree is up!

Tay put up almost all of the ornaments!

My phone did this because it was having trouble focusing, but I think it's still pretty...

The first round of outdoor lights.

Beautiful…Rea's very first Christmas.

My big and my little.

Love these girls.

When the above two photos were taken, here's where my middle was…and what she was doing. She must have had a little too much excitement decorating because she just racked out on the couch.

But then she woke up, so I was able to get this lovely photo of all my girls admiring the tree.

And kissing their little sister on the head.

Oh, how these are the most precious presents that ever will be under my Christmas tree. :)

After all the decorating and photos, we enjoyed some hot chocolate with marshmallows.

Then baths and bed for the girls. Look how fuzzy her hair is getting! I just happened to notice today!

And the two fell asleep together again…this time, they just rolled into each other and slept like this for a while. Then I had to move the older child because she started rolling around a little more vigorously.

After the girls went to bed, Jeff and I got busy setting up the December Christmas magic. We told the girls that in the month of December, some Christmas magic starts to float through the house and make the toys come to life like in Toy Story. The first night, some of the toys decided to admire the Christmas tree..while Minion climbed the tree to get at the ornament that plays music.