Happy Thanksgiving!

Hooray for another Thanksgiving at the Stith residence!  For the past 4 years, ever since Zoe was born on Thanksgiving morning, we've made it a tradition to stay at our house and keep to ourselves all day.  Don't get me wrong, we are incredibly thankful for the wonderful family and friends we are lucky enough to have in our lives.  At the same time though, it really is pretty great to not have to travel and to be in your own house on a day like today.  We have the day lazily mapped out every year, and it goes something like this...of course there are differences each year because the kids are so different from year to year, but basically it's the same. ...this is what we did this year:

1)  Woke up
2)  Had coffee/put pull aparts in the oven (this isn't the recipe we use, but you get the idea)
3)  Hung out with kids all together
4)  Owen went down for nap #1
5)  Watched the parade and demolished pull aparts while having one too may mimosas.  It was interesting for me to notice that the last couple of years, since we moved away from New York, I've felt a pang of nostalgia and sadness while watching the parade.  This year I didn't feel that at all.  I felt totally content to be in my apartment in Colorado, sitting on the couch knitting while Owen napped quietly upstairs and Nathan and Zoe cuddled on our big ol' recliner.
6)  Nathan started dinner around 11am (he makes the WHOLE dinner.  The only thing I did this year was put the pull aparts in the oven and I stirred the gravy while he took a quick bathroom break...don't worry I take care of clean up)
7)  Watched Santa come down the street and did a little family dance in the living room while waving to and cheering for Santa
8)  Turned on Christmas music
9)  Nathan continued to cook and I hung out with the kids
10)  Zoe and I kept busy while Owen napped.  This year we worked on our Winter Solstice wreath and Zoe helped Nathan cook here and there
11)  After Owen's nap we ate a little lunch and wrote a letter to Santa (see below)
12)  Headed outside to mail letter to Santa and go to the playground.  We also went on a nature walk to collect things to add to our wreath
13)  Headed home for Owen's afternoon nap
13)  Helped Nathan if he needed it, but otherwise hung out some more (more work on wreath)
14)  After Owen woke up it was pretty much exactly time for dinner right then (Nathan's getting better and better at this huge task...the first year we did this I think we ate at 10pm)
15)  Ate
16)  I started cleaning up and Nathan hung out with the kids
17)  Bedtime for the kids
18)  Pie for Mommy and Daddy! Zoe didn't seem to care about it this year...anyway, she hardly ate anything so we had to tell her if she was too stuffed to eat dinner, she was too stuffed for pie.  She didn't put up much of a fight so we don't feel too guilty about eating the pie after bedtime.

So there you have it!  I know you were all dying to know what our day was like so I knew I had to jump right on the computer to fill you in.  Truth be told, I haven't even had my pie yet--that's how concerned I was about getting this information out to you....honestly, though the main reason I rushed to post this is that I wanted to find a reason to show off our finished Winter Solstice wreath!  Here it is with a couple of pictures of the steps we took to get there:

Wrapped some fuzzy white yarn tightly around a craft foam wreath from Joann's

That step completed

Adding a couple of waxed leaves and felt flowers (to learn how to do these flowers, see my "Lack of Projects and an ER visit" post from October)

Finished product!

We will light one candle each week in December, leading up to Winter Solstice on the 22nd.  Each time we light one, we'll read poems about winter or just talk about why we love and appreciate this time of year.

 Here is Zoe's letter to Santa.  This is easily turning into one of my favorite traditions...so cute and fun!

Yay for this time of year...our favorite...hope you all had a great day too!