BushChang Family Web Site

Home of Steve, Christine, Katherine, Ally, Rosebud, and Rex

You are here: Home / Archives for Holidays / Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

Katherine’s First Search

Katherine’s First Search

Tonight, as I was cleaning up from another day of renovation fun, Steve called out to me, “Hey, guess what Katherine did!”

Katherine had climbed onto Steve’s den chair, used the mouse to put her cursor on the Live Search toolbar box, and typed “Lamby.”

This, of course, is the name of her much beloved and very ratty looking stuffed animal.

Live Search returned a Target web site with an Lamby layette collection. Allison and Katherine clicked all around the site, looking at lamb pillows, crib bumpers and wall hangings. Katherine ran off to find her official Santa list and add this to her list. Allison provided a running commentary, “How Beeeautiful…Mama you have to see this!”

Our philosophy on computer literacy has been to limit the girls’ computer exposure to MS Paint. Katherine uses a mouse to draw lambs and such and the keyboard to type names and words into her pictures. However, she tries to mimic our use, typing an email to Lamby the other day (addressed to me).

She has also gotten a hold of Steve’s iPhone and figured out how to activate it…Reading the phone, “Swwwipppe to staarrt” she took her finger and swiped it across the phone. That sure got Steve’s attention!

Thanksgiving

We had a very nice Thanksgiving, with Sharon and Jamey visiting from Boston. My mom was gracious enough to host us two evenings – once for Thanksgiving hot pot and once for my birthday dinner. Lacking a stove, inside refrigerator and oven, we ate out the rest of the time.

Our kitchen is almost assembled now. It has cabinets, subtop, granite, sink, stove and fridge installed. No faucet or dishwasher or oven yet. Fingers crossed we don’t have to make fudge for our upcoming cookie exchange!

The bathrooms are still in progress. Cabinets, subtops and granite/limestone all are in. We’re still awaiting our backordered faucets, new tile, shower, etc.

Our goal – Finish Before Christmas.

Thanksgiving 2005

Thanksgiving 2005

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year, despite our fifth preschool cold making its way thru the family. The Sunday preceding T-Day, Katherine complained of a sore throat and sported a 101 fever on Monday morning. She stayed home from preschool both Monday and Tuesday, which was grueling for Patty and me, and missed her stone soup exercise at school.

On Wednesday, I kept both kids busy, playing lots of board games/puzzles and taking the kids to the local shopping mall for Katherine’s haircut. That evening, Sharon and Jamey arrived to the delight of Katherine. “Hi Uncle Jamey…we’re going to make pie!!”

It was a pretty low key day, which was great, since the preschool cold was making its way thru the house. (I managed to fight it off after several days with only a nice residual cough.) We went to my mom’s house for hot pot, pumpkin pie and cheesecake.

Friday: the family trooped to the local mall for posed pictures. Steve also went nuts and made a full turkey dinner!

Saturday: we took the kids to a local photographer for b&w pictures, to Chinatown for noodles/groceries and then my mom’s for a birthday dinner (yes, mine).

Sunday: we went shopping again for my birthday gift (grin) and then went to an informal dinner out with Steve’s parents, grandfather, my mom and the kids.

The girls were exhausted with all the excitement, taking full afternoon naps each day starting Sunday and thru today as well.

Allison’s developments

Allison now has another reason to be cranky. Her second bottom tooth started to cut through early last week! Poor kid didn’t want to be put down. Everytime I would put her down she’d yell at me and fuss until I picked her up. She didn’t want to sleep at all, and we finally resorted to Children’s Tylenol to help.

Allison has a new endearing trait…shrieking. She seems perfectly happy but screeches at us. Both Patty and I swear that we’re going to lose our hearing at this rate. Steve claims that Katherine did this as well, but I must have blocked this out.

Behind the Mirror

I went to visit Katherine’s classroom today with Steve’s mom. We observed for over 90 minutes watching the children go thru a “work cycle” and then hit circle time. Great news is that Katherine’s concentration and ability to work in the Montessori environment is much greater. There were some pretty funny moments…visiting the snack table periodically to see if she could grab a spot, having to revisit her work area four times to finish cleaning up, and watching the teacher and other children dancing (trying to figure out the movements). Her classroom participation / work is really night and day compared to late September…which is great.

Thanksgiving 2004

We had so many memorable activities that it’s worth describing our Thanksgiving week. It started out with the Bush home in Trilogy closing on Tuesday – coming down to the wire right before the Thanksgiving weekend. Suffice to say, everyone was relieved that the closing happened in time for Steve’s parents to stay in the new house. Wednesday was a flurry of activity, as grandparents settled in and Katherine and I ran errands prior to the weekend.

On Thursday, we all trooped over to Steve’s Aunt and Uncle’s house for an extended (and we mean extended) family celebration. With half a dozen great-grandchildren, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, it was a raucous celebration. As you can see, Katherine befriended Mandy, a very patient golden retriever who allowed Katherine to play with her at length.

The following day, we celebrated my birthday at Amy and Jason’s house. You can see the birthday cake which barely fit all 36 candles. ๐Ÿ™‚

And, then on Saturday, Sid and his parents came over to hang out. For a snack, we made smoothies for the kids. They liked it.

Later that evening, Grandma Bush babysat while Steve and I went to the “Incredibles.” Suffice to say, we weren’t disappointed, and I understand the terrific ratings.