Thanksgiving

I didn't really take photos. It was pretty much the same thing as always: dinner at my mom's with all the usual suspects plus Jon's sister in from New York to spend the day with us and the boys. Aleks ate two turkey legs and a wing. After years of watching him eat next-to-nothing, everyone was pretty amazed. There was the usual fun of crazy family members, but no drama whatsoever, which was not unusual, but certainly helpful for decreasing overall stress. I was happy for it.

While Jon was off picking up Teresa from the airport, the grandparents and Aunt Lilly started dancing in a chain to Natty's Slavic music. We all joined in and it was a special kind of joyful crazy that we all love about our family.The boys forced Aunt Teresa to download lots of special apps on her iPhone, which they then played with almost all day. Here, Aleks talks to his Gido on the phone while I finish up my holiday countdown cranes at the table, after pie.
We all stayed up too late watching movies. We watched Elf together, which I stole as a thing-to-do from somebody's holiday countdown post somewhere. I found it on sale at Marshall's for five dollars and thought it a great way to ring in the season. The weather around here has been unusually warm and not at all indicative of Christmas on its way. It's hard to complain too hard about that though.