Wonderful news!! So happy to hear you are doing well! :party:

Happy birthday to both of you!! :hurray:

Praying Ellen!! :grouphug:

Other than my immediate family, my "growing up" family is pretty small. My paternal grandparents had only 1 child (my dad), my maternal grandparents had two. My mom had one child and adopted another (me). My uncle never married. So I have only one uncle and no first cousins. My brother has two and I'm 99% sure that is all they will have. We broke the mold, but then again I've always been a little different. :lol: I know many families around here that are 0-2 kids for several generations.

Thank you! I'm always looking for new recipes - with our allergies I usually have more luck with cuisine from other countries, so this is perfect!

We're not technically anti-Santa either, although from a young age my children know he is a "story." We can still "play it up" when/if we want but we think this keeps some perspective. We have read Jotham's Journey (that a PP mentioned) in the past and this year are getting the next in the series. Every night we light the advent candles and each kid sings a line from "O Come O Come Emmanuel". We have a multi-piece nativity scene (kind of like those winter village multi-house scenes) that we put up and talk about. On Christmas we go to church on Christmas Day, and open presents afterwards. People think we are freaks, but my kids know who the day is about, even though we are light on the preaching with words...we mostly try to let our priorities do the talking, with a smile. ETA: I forgot about St. Nick! I should read the thread more closely, lol. We do St. Nicholas on Dec 6, and tell the kids he was a real man who was the precursor of the "story-like" santa claus most people talk about today.

Good: *I found daiya cheese at a local store so I could make one of my favorite casseroles safe for my whole family (and it wasn't half bad even though it was "fake" cheese/sour cream/mayo) *everyone on best behavior *we didn't need to travel *food was tasty (and like the OP) it was all the things *I* like since it was my house! *parents and BIL's family brought dishes to help out *great to see my nieces and everyone had fun *I can't wait to make turkey soup tomorrow bad: *I just had another piece of chocolate pie :lol: *the turkey took way too long to cook *all the leftovers are in my fridge wooing me *I'm exhausted and I have to prep for oldest's birthday tomorrow *feeling a bit sorry for myself as everything falls to me *this has nothing to do with thanksgiving but my dh just closed a door on my finger (accident) and it really hurts. :tongue_smilie:

I just got an email from Barnes & Noble that said "Any one educational toy or game 50% off -- in stores and online" - maybe Catan will qualify? I hope so, we are looking for it too! :) ETA: Forgot to say that it is for tomorrow, 11/25.

:grouphug::grouphug: I'm sorry. :grouphug::grouphug:

Nothing to add that hasn't already been said, but thought I'd give you a friendly *bump* :001_smile:

After at least 12 years of marriage my husband all of a sudden decided he wanted his underwear folded. :glare: I still love him anyway. :lol: But I think I keep my underwear drawer extra messy just as a counterbalance to the insanity.

Look, even Grammar Girl was taught to spell it wrong. ;)

Wonderful!!:001_smile:

I'll put myself out there and admit that the people that have unfriended me so far really hurt. The first was a kind of "group unfriend" by the popular kids at my high school - they all unfriended a bunch of people to stay in their clique. :glare: The second was a person that I was very good friends with in high school, who I'm pretty sure unfriended me because I occasionally post stuff about how it's nice to have a large family. She is child free by choice and very into the environment and zero population growth. This is the second time someone in my life has stopped being my friend because I had children (more than the accepted level) and it really, really hurts. :crying:

:tongue_smilie:posting at the same time as everyone else and they explained it much better.

Lemma, but because I spelled dilemna with an N, I never put two and two together and realized that DI-lemma was a "double lemma". I just knew it was a problem. :tongue_smilie: (and yes I did very well in English and on my SATs :lol:)

I'm sorry. Praying for all of you!!:grouphug:

As a mom of a DD with alopecia, I'm glad it's ringworm!! :001_smile: Hope the meds work quickly for him.

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: The words I'm thinking of aren't proper for a family website. That really stinks.

I'm 42, went to public school all my life, and remember being taught to spell it dilemNa. I was freaked out when I discovered the internets :D and saw everyone spelling it dilemma!:tongue_smilie:

We have drama but it's boring drama, if that makes any sense - I mean who wants to see me up in the middle of the night for the millionth time with a 4yo screaming in pain or my 8yo breaking out in hives all over her arms from touching a milk spill we didn't know was there? :tongue_smilie: Or my head exploding from teaching the LDed teen spelling? :lol: I would never want to be on reality TV, but I knew I had slid into "drama territory" when watching a reality weight loss show (can't remember which) and thinking, "I got more going on than this chick, where is *my* team of helpers??" I would *love* to be on Extreme Makeover Home Edition though. Come build me a new house!! :lol:

:lol: I loved the part about Jar Jar. "Whatever I have to do... I'll do it." My kids all watched the Star Wars movies this summer ... so they were 13, 11, 8, 6, and 3. The 6 and 3yo didn't watch the third movie of the newer trilogy (is that the pg13 one?) They loved them all so much they each wrote a paper on it (OK, we pushed that one a little, but they were into it) and learned how to sing this in 4 part harmony. :lol:

:grouphug::grouphug: and a couple extra because nastiness from others when you are post-partum is just that much worse :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: My head is exploding for you.

Beautiful girls! What cute pictures. :)

Me too - my kids wake up and at 6 AM the 4yo is asking me to play "Do You Want To Be A Third Grader" :lol: I'm not much smarter than a 5th grader at 6 AM. :tongue_smilie: When that's done we play "Are You Smarter than a Millionaire" :D I also play (and stink at) Words With Friends. I've always got one Farmville type game going, right now it's Ravenskye City. I get bored with them when the game gets too hard without a ton of friends playing the same game, and move on to another one.