The Grand Finale

(This is actually a three-part Thanksgiving blog, so scroll down if you want to be in order. If you don't care about order, then go ahead and start wherever you want to!)

I love Thanksgiving for many reasons, and I won't bother listing them all here. (If you're in my immediate family, then you are now very thankful that I am not starting my rant about how this wonderful holiday between Halloween and Christmas is too often overlooked and forgotten about...)

Anyway, I was saying....

I love many things about Thanksgiving, and so much of it has to do with family time. But, one of my absolute favorite things that I look forward to every year is our official "grand finale"---the downtown "parade of lights" in my hometown. It is something that we've done for years since childhood, and a tradition that I hope I carry out for years to come. My girls have only missed one year so far, and they, too, are forming their love for this event each year.

Here are a few things I love about it, off the top of my head:

1) I love that it happens no matter what. Come rain or shine, the Teague family will be there. Okay, maybe that's not always true....if it was raining, we would skip, wouldn't we? But, most every year, whoever is in town attends. (The brother-in-laws really love this rule....)

2) I love that we completely make fun of it for its awful entries, the ridiculous length with over 100 awful entries, and how cold and crowded it often is.....but, deep down we love it for these exact reasons. It gives us something to laugh at. Again and again, every year.

3) I love it when it is actually cold for the parade, like it was this year. There have been years where we were wearing t-shirts and still sweating. But, this was a break-out-your-gloves-and-hats-and blankets kind of a year. The BEST!! Even Abby Kate clapped for the coldness....

4) I love seeing downtown FW decked out in holiday spirit, music, and festivity.

5) I love seeing that thousands of other families feel the same way we do about this parade and do whatever they need to do to have a front row view.

....which brings me to the story of this year's Thanksgiving parade.

We really have this parade thing down to a science (kind of). We meet at Grandad and Grankay's house, caravan to the train station, ride the train to downtown (to cut down on the pain of parking with hundreds of others), and set up our camp on our favorite corner to wait for those familiar police lights marking the beginning of two hours of craziness.

This year, we heard there was a new rule. People were not allowed to block the side-streets with their chairs and blankets. So, we picked a new corner, and sat adjacent to the parade, where we could watch across one of these newly cleared streets, and see the parade turn the opposite corner.

Here we are, all set up with our new idea. Notice the set-up we took time to complete. Chairs, blankets, the works. We also got there an hour early to secure our spot. Notice the cold noses from waiting SO LONG...and notice we have a front row view on the curb.

Fast forward past our freezing cold waiting and food & drink run to Starbucks (that turned into a movie concession stand stop because Starbucks line was an hour long), to literally minutes before the parade reached our corner. All of a sudden, mass chaos broke out, and I knew nothing that was happening.

I frantically look up to see five cops on motorcycles simply stand there while a mob of people block the entire street with their lawn chairs and big rear-ends, while my family stands there dumbfounded....on our cool new corner....with our lawn chairs set-up....now behind 600 people with a front row view of our beloved parade.

This is when it gets funny.

I just stand there, frozen, not knowing what to do. My husband and brother-in-law head to the cops to find out exactly why they didn't bother to do their jobs. And, the rest of us just hang out at our precious (now pointless) corner. My dad, however, takes ACTION. Grandadwas NOT going to have his grandkids miss out on the awesomeness of this parade. So, off he goes, pushing his way through these rude people to find the front. He was yelled at, pushed back, and murmured about the whole time. But, that didn't stop him. One particular lady (who I have to admit made me QUITE angry), started yelling at dad, saying "Excuse me! We are the FRONT of this parade! (along with a whole bunch of other stuff that we ignored). Dad responded by letting her know that we had been waiting over an hour to see this parade, and he was not going to stand at the back with his kids because others had broken the rules. (or something along those lines---I wasn't there. Remember, I was still "frozen" next to my lawn chair). The conversation escalated and ended with Dad saying, in response to her ranting about her being "the front of the parade".... "Well,", said Grandad, "this is now the NEW FRONT!" And, there he sat, at the "new front" with his three grandchildren, who sat wide-eyed, completely in awe through the ENTIRE parade. (the "blackness" in front of him is where the parade passed by...literally within feet of their seats. Notice no one else is even next to them, because they are completely in front of the masses. Hilarious.)

It was awesome. I was so proud to be a Teague. And, I felt like sharing our parade history with this woman, who I'm sure had no appreciation for the importance of this event! Okay, okay, she has probably come just as many years, and sat just as long waiting as we did. But, WE didn't break the "no blocking the street" rule!!!

It was a fun parade as always, even though we literally froze our feet off. We caught the train back (that was a minor accomplishment for us over past years), and had DELICIOUS soup night at Grandad and Grankay's house. The perfect ending to an incredibly eventful night. :)

Thanks, Dad, for showing your grandkids they're worth fighting for. And, for making it a fun night for all of us. :) The girls had such a fun time, and I wouldn't have wanted them to watch it any other way!

Here are a few more pictures of the "parade of lights":

The cousins wait in anticipation for the parade to begin. Braden says "What is so fun about this, exactly?" Don't worry, he'll learn. :)

My grandparents, Grandmother & Papa Roy, joined us this year. That blob of blankets in her lap is Abby Kate, asleep in the midst of the craziness....

One of my favorite pictures...Mark and Cailee. Mark's first parade experience with our family was when Cailee was seven years old and she rode his shoulders the whole night. So, we took one this year of the "grown up version" of these two. Ten years later, exactly. So sweet....And, here is the traditional sister picture taken at practically every event. Cassie, notice anything familiar? Yes, that's right, we still hold your place for you on the end just like in many years past. :) We truly missed you...it wasn't the same. Caleb's gonna LOVE it someday!

And, finally, here is Abby Kate's view of the entire night. Somewhere from within sixteen blankets and a fleece hat, I think she caught a glimpse of Santa at the end. :)And, that, my blog friends, is the 'grand finale' of our Thanksgiving holiday.

A Wintry Wonderland

So, after our family feast (see post below), we packed our bags and headed to Abilene to visit the family and have some yummy food! Having been accustomed to weather reporters who get "overly dramatic" about wintry forecasts every single year, I didn't fully believe the news that it would be incredibly cold for Thanksgiving, and never even heard that the snow was in our forecast. This piece of information will come in handy later in this blog. Anyway, I packed somewhat warm clothing for all of us, and threw in a coat or two for good measure, and we were off.

We spent Wednesday through Friday hanging out with family, seeing dear old friends (Matt and Melissa----how did we spend those hours together and not get ONE picture of our families???), eating a ton of delicious food, watching /sleeping through football, hanging out with the girls' favorite second-cousin Carrie (these three were inseparable!), watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and Little House on the Prairie (all snuggled up with Kristen),

and.....playing in FOUR INCHES of snow!

This was the BEST thing that has ever happened to Kendyll on Thanksgiving (according to her) and she gave thanks many times for this wonderful surprise....Even though she was in cotton leggings and a thin jacket....thanks to her oh-so-skeptical-of-weather-forecasters-mommy.

We eventually borrowed clothes from the older and wiser cousin Carrie, and then all was well for building a snowman, having a snowball fight with Daddy (look at that action shot!), eating lots of snowflakes as they fell,and making many a snow angel.

Not exactly what we expected for our Thanksgiving holidays. But, it sure made it a memorable one!

We also enjoyed being with Mark's grandmother, who got extra special Abby Kate cuddling (when we could peel her away from her mommy and daddy's arms. :).

Here she is cuddling again with Aunt Carol too!

And, with Pops...

Uncle Chuck is a skilled hunter and collector of amazing exotic animals. His office is truly spectacular. The girls are always infatuated with this room, and you can see why!

Can you find Kendyll? She looks like another one of the animals in her leopard print PJ's!

We also made time for a family picture....Once again, three photographers and many pictures later, we still don't have smiles on all of our faces. But, this was the closest we got.

Thanks Uncle Chuck, Aunt Carol, and cousins Kristen and George for amazing food and the warmest hospitality (and fireplace) in the city. We had a wonderful time and the girls are still talking about the fun!

Eating the Plates

I realize that these thanksgiving posts are going to be backwards. And, that kind of annoys me. But, I can't post any other way, or I'll get confused. So, here goes Day Two of our thanksgiving holidays (day one was considered to be "program" day at our house).

Tuesday night, since everyone was finally feeling better, we had our long awaited Pilgrim Feast as a family. Before we headed out of town to see family, we wanted to celebrate our own way. We spent a lot of time reading about the pilgrims and early settlers in America this month. So, after reading the cutest book (I highly recommend it to everyone!), called "Eating the Plates: A Pilgrim Book of Food & Manners", I was inspired to create an original feast the pilgrims might have had, along with all the weird manners that they required.

Kendyll and I set our menu, shopped for the groceries, and then cooked and baked all afternoon. Carlie set the table (and helped when she felt like it with the baking), Kendyll drew and decorated the menu, and Mommy made the pilgrim hats. (However, I failed greatly at the attempt at Mark's male pilgrim hat...so he had to be an Indian instead. :)

After cooking WAY too long (I'm now glad to live in an age where you can have a microwave used in your meal prep!), here is our final dinner, ready to be eaten:

Corn Soup, Indian Pudding, Succotash Stew, Mashed Pumpkin, Cranberry Bread, and Buttermilk Pie.....

Our last job was to post the rules for the dinner, but we ran out of time to write them out. Instead, Kendyll said them on video for us to remember for next year. Here are a few of the random things about pilgrims eating habits you may not have known...

1) They ate their plates. They used flat, stale bread as a dinner plate, and then ate it at the end of the meal when it had become soggy from their food. (We bought fresh baked bread loaves that were circles, which ended up being the absolute highlight of our rather strange meal. :)

2) They required all children to stand throughout the entire meal. They thought it was disrespectful for children to sit in the presence of adults. (This one was quite entertaining...Kendyll was so tired after 5 minutes of standing, and Carlie couldn't reach her plate. So, we eventually all sat down together.)

3) Pilgrims used their fingers to eat most all of their foods. They didn't even own forks, and they used spoons for only their soup. This was interesting when it came to eating mashed pumpkin, succotash stew, and indian pudding....

4) Because of the whole finger-eating thing, the pilgrims all wore gigantic napkins that were tied around their necks and went all the way past their knees. The only rule was that you must wipe your fingers before you dug into the pot for your next serving. (See our attempt at this large napkin idea below....it looks more like a straight-jacket, really. Which isn't a bad idea either! ha ha.)

5) The drink of choice for ALL meals and ALL ages was beer. They started their infants on beer in the first year of life, and all children and adults drank it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Mark thought we should try this one, just to see what our kids would do, although we chose to go with "apple cider", which the pilgrims also liked and called "swizzle". (Mark was totally kidding about getting our kids drunk, by the way!)

6) Most pilgrim families only owned one or two cups. So, the whole family dipped the cup in the barrel of beer and passed it around the table. Everyone took a drink before passing it to the next person (Oh my goodness, my kids LOVED this rule the most I think and I have no idea why!)

It was truly amazing to read so much about the pilgrims---much more than this list---their hard conditions, the amazing ways they found their food and flavored it, as well as how hard each and every member of the family worked. The girls learned SO much from these books and from this meal. It's definitely being added to our "Thanksgiving activities" list of ideas.

And, I'll end the pilgrim feast report with one of my favorite pictures from the evening. This sums up Carlie's experience. She did NOT like this pilgrim meal much at all. She ended up eating a few pieces of steak (from the succotash stew) and her bread plate. Needless to say, she ate a GREAT breakfast the next morning. :)

It was a fun night for these four pilgrims and one Indian (who Kendyll affectionately called Squanto Daddy.)

Milestones

A few updates on the milestones we're passing around here:

1) I hit 200 blog entries yesterday! Can't believe that. With my first entry, I just knew I would be done after a few weeks. Little did I know how addicted I would become. So, happy 200 to me!

2) Despite Abby Kate's illness and extreme lethargy, she has decided this week is a good time to show new tricks. She now claps for everything and is so proud of herself. Of course, we are obnoxiously proud of her, and cheer and yell every time she does it. Man, now I see why the babies of the family love that attention! :) She has also started really crawling on her knees, has waved bye-bye....twice (see what I mean? Too much attention on her every move!), and has discovered baby dolls. Here she is, smiling, even after puking much of the day. Those baby dolls bring the smile out....

3) The last milestone is a significant one....for Carlie, anyway. Today was her fall program at Sunshine School. And, the girl SANG!!!! Now, she only sang random words here and there, and she didn't smile until the last few lines. But, we were proud of her for even participating!

Last night, I was trying to get her to practice some of her songs, and this was how our conversation went:

C: (after I sang a while with no response) "Mommy, you can sing them if you want to"

M: "But, Carlie, I'm not a turkey---you are!"

C: "I'm NOT a TURKEY!!!!!"
M: "Yes you are, Carlie! You have a turkey costume and you're singing turkey songs tomorrow."

C: (said with a very disrespectful roll of the eyes) "Mom! I'm CARLIE! I'm not a TURKEY!"

M: "Well, okay, you're Carlie just acting like a turkey. I'll sing part of this and you finish it." (followed by me singing more lyrics of her program)
C: (while walking away) "Don't know."

M: "You don't know?"

C: "Don't know any of that Mom."
M: "Okay, let's go to bed. I can't wait to see you tomorrow on stage! You're going to do great!"
C: "Ahhhhhh!!!" (her famous frustrated sigh)

So, you now see why I wasn't sure she would even get on stage. She was the last one in the auditorium (by choice) and walked with her head down the whole way, embarrassed and humiliated to look like this:

(by the way, they are supposed to be turkeys who are working out to get skinny so they won't be eaten on Thanksgiving...thus, the reason for a gym sign on her chest. It was cute!!)

Anyway, she kept her head down for the whole first song, hoping to disappear amongst the sea of turkeys. (see her on the far right!)But, then realized her friends behind her thought it was cool to sing about being a turkey. So then, she smiled and sang along for a while.

She is a FUNNY girl to watch perform....or not perform. But, we're proud of her anyway!

My other favorite part was seeing her work in the classroom. Everyone had a "Thankful For..." list at their seat that included many of the following key items: Mommy, Daddy, sister, brother, God, Jesus, the Bible, etc. etc.

Here is Carlie's list:

Notice who is #1. Not Mommy. Not Daddy. We didn't make the list at all, actually. Number 1 was Caroline. Of course. And, here are those cute turkeys together:

It was a fun "kickoff" celebration of thanksgiving week for us. Tonight, Kendyll gave us her own Thanksgiving program from what she has learned so far this year. And, tomorrow, we're having a pilgrim feast as a family that includes using their manners, and eating their foods. Should be interesting! I'll be back with more tomorrow. (Man, I'm going to be at 300 posts before the year is out at this rate!)

The Stomach Bug & Bday at the Zoo!

One of these days---when I feel like my readers are ready for an extremely interesting blog entry---I'm going to recount for you the illnesses we have had here at our house over the last six months. It is really ridiculous. And, now, we were down all weekend with the stomach bug. Poor Abby Kate started it on Thursday morning, and is still not better. The good news is that we have had the best cuddle time with her, which may be getting a little out of hand. I've rocked her, let her fall asleep on me, and had her sleep in our room the last three nights. BAD, Mommy. But, so, so, so worth it. (We'll just see what I say next week, when she still expects to be rocked to sleep....) Mark and Carlie were the only ones to steer clear (so far!) of the bug, and they did a great job taking care of us sickies.

Meanwhile, I owe a few updates to some very patient grandparents!

Happy Birthday, Pops! Here's the annual picture we take and email him, since we usually don't get to see him on his birthday---this year with one more kiddo included!

But, this year, we got to have Pops here on his actual birthday and Grandma planned a great time celebrating his big day. I don't know if it was actually his choice, but we spent the day at the zoo! And, the kids had a blast.

Of course, half the day was spent making the kids take group pictures, and a few actually worked...some better than others.

Pops with the oldest...

Pops with the middle...

And, Pops with the babies...

We got a few more pictures of activities at the zoo....

Feeding the birds:The grown-up kiddos (minus Chris) stop with Pops to have icees:

And, a disciplining moment by Mommy! (I was laughing so hard when I saw this one on our camera. One of those moments you would never suspect you were being documented...)

Sophie leads us in a game of follow-the-leader at breakfast:

And, sweet Ty just hangs out smiling the whole time and entertaining us with his cuteness.

Kendyll even got some practice with the camera and took a couple of pretty good ones!

One of the mountain lion...

One of the "pouting monkey", as Carlie called him....

One (or maybe 25) of Kendyll's favorite zoo animal, the meerkat (yuck.)...

And, one of Pops!

We ended the day with delicious burgers and milkshakes, and some cake and lots of candles. Boy, does he have lots of help on those candles!

It was a fun celebration and we are always thankful for our time with our grandparents....especially the one who still lives in the middle of the ocean! We look forward to the day you are here for good, Popsy!

Now, this little sick family is off to take a walk to the duck pond. Because, as Kendyll says, "this family needs some breezy air" after a weekend indoors. :)