This is one big mess of a post because my pictures are in random order, thanks a lot, Blogger

I want to tell you about the rest of our awesome weekend including today which had holiday magic written all over it, and I totally will. But not in any sort of narrative order because damn Blogger screwed my pictures up. It's more of a pain to move them than it is to tell you about them in a weird way, so here ya go:

Here we are on actual Thanksgiving outside my grandma's house.  4 generations!

And now it's Friday night at my parents' house where we are clearly opening gifts.

Saturday morning breakfast:  Dorothy encounters real food like a bagel and a handful of cream cheese.

Saturday lunch-- she almost choked to death on Avanti's bread.

Lunch with the Snarkys

Family pictures with Lydia!

It's still Saturday here.  We took the kids to the Caterpillar museum because you know how much Cooper loves trucks

Then we went to my favorite park in the world in Pekin

Oh!  And look!  Now it is TODAY.  Monday.  And we are back in Wisconsin picking out our Christmas tree which Ben hacked down all by himself.

Cooper in one hand and a saw in the other!  Love it!

Oh.  Shit.  Now it's Friday, and we are in West Branch, IA at the Herbert Hoover birth site, museum, and presidential library where we stopped on our way home.  It;s a national park with rangers and an artist in residence and all.

Harry was grossed out by the idea of an outhouse, which is funny because he will always use a port-a-potty

Ben was totes excited to see the blacksmith shop replica

Whoops.  Back to Friday night at my parents'

And now Saturday at the Pekin park

Saturday night getting fancy for turkey dinner #2 at my parents' house

Fancy dinner!  Complete with kid table

Cooper even used a flute.

Sunday!  At home!  Making Hanukkah!

Hanukkah!

Today we realized we had no food, so after the big boys went to school, we took the babies to the grocery store

And fed them lunch

Then we hacked down our tree!

And decorated it.  Dorothy is enthralled.

Jack was so happy to be reunited with his favorite Christmas Fisher Price toys

Our tree is kind of shrimpy.  It's way shorter than we thought it was and really spindly, too with an awkward bare space around its middle.  Not enough room for all of our ornaments, either.  Next year, I vote for a pre-cut.  This tree is so small I didn't even have to move anything to accommodate it, and there's still plenty of room to walk around it.  The kids are extremely proud of it, though, and their happiness is what it's all about, right?