30 Days of Gratitude: Days 16 and 17

Yesterday, the kindergarteners had their annual Thanksgiving Feast. They've been preparing for it all week. On Monday, we had to bring a T-shirt that we had to cut up into strips at the bottom and on the sleeves. The kids dyed the T-shirts in class with tea bags and then tied beads on the strips. They chose "Indian" names. Of course, Eric chose "Smiling Dinosaur". Is that not the cutest thing, or what? They also made placemats with their "Indian" names on them as well as their headbands. Apparently they were able to earn extra feathers for their headbands too. Eric had five feathers.

For their feast, they had grapes, rolled up turkey sandwich meat slices, and pumpkin pie, washed down with apple juice. Although the feast was after 2pm and they had lunch at 11:40am, Eric ate like he hadn't had any lunch. He started on the grapes as soon as he sat down, then he ate the turkey like it was the best thing he had ever tasted. He tried the pumpkin pie but he said he didn't like it, so Patrick ended up eating the rest of it.

After the Feast, we signed Eric out so we could take him straight home. This is a picture of Patrick and Eric walking towards his classroom to pick up his backpack. Patrick is carrying an extra pumpkin pie that we brought but that they didn't need. There were plenty of parents and family there and plenty of food. Eric is carrying the placemat with his "Indian" name on it. The boys got a kick out of his name when they saw his placemat when they got home. Natalie didn't want to come home with us. She wanted to finish out her classes and then she wanted to take the bus so she could sit with her friends.

Patrick and I were thankful we were able to participate in such a fun annual ritual. Five and six-year-olds are at such a fun age for learning this stuff, aren't they? Eric has been enjoying kindergarten so much. One thing he has been doing recently is counting how many syllables in his name. He even told me that he has one syllable less in his whole name as Alex has in HIS whole name. He is so fascinated by that sort of thing right now, and we get excited along with him.

Today was our first relaxing weekend in a while, and the weather was so beautiful, too. Natalie got to play with her friend Margot all day and now Margot is sleeping over, too. Patrick and I got to take Eric swimming at the gym. Patrick was also trying to teach Eric how to play basketball. This season should be quite interesting. Alex finally got to play his new Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 game that he received on Tuesday. Anthony got to "play" with his friends at his old school, where they were having their annual fundraiser called the "King's Fair". We all got to go out for dinner together at Chili's and then ice cream at Brindles. Remarkably, only Margot, Natalie, and I were the only ones to get ice cream. Alex was content to just hang out there and listen to his iPod and the others wanted to go to the Half-Price Books next door. We all have different things to be thankful for today.