My awesome brother-in-law Dylan made us a chandelier for our great room – it is handcrafted with matching wood stain as the rest of the house, and weights like 150 lbs pounds. So Tommy and Dylan have been devising a system of pulleys and ropes to hang it, and it is a multi-month project. Here’s a snapshot of one of the work sessions. I am not exactly afraid of heights but I will NOT be helping on this project.

We got right to it this year after Thanksgiving and had the tree up well before December hit. (Can thank COVID for that). These little rugrats are finally old enough to actually be a help. I also hung Christmas lights all over the porch. I tested the lights prior to putting them up, but failed to realize that 1/3 of a strand can be out at a time (I was just looking for “on” or “off”. So after they were hung perfectly and plugged in, I realized that two strands were actually not fully working, but they are just going to stay that way.

The Pandemic has meant that we eat hot breakfast made by Chef Tommy pretty much every weekend day, and sometimes during the week. As an added bonus the day after Thanksgiving, we added in a Pumpkin Pie!

Penny doesn’t use her crate very often (you know, pandemic puppies don’t get left alone very often), but it sure does make a fun play spot

So when you move 7 people using a pickup truck, it takes approximately 40,000 trips. Here’s number 28,394 but we are still smiling! The famous ‘poop’ came with us in this load. (No, Laney did not ride like this while moving).

Although I have yet to lounge in my new fancy clawfoot bathtub, Maggie has not wasted any time.

Travis stopped by on the way to vacation to debate politics and COVID restrictions. I exhausted him with my intellect, so I snapped a picture of him resting on the couch (it was also Maggie’s nap time; they have similar stamina).

After 4 kids, I finally have a recommendation for a baby carrier for the 0-6months age (in North Carolina). I’ve owned MANY (Bjorn, Moby, Ergo, Ergo performance, Boba, ring sling, Infantino, Stokke, among others), and I finally love the Baby K’tan Active for this age range. And so does Orly!

Kaya and Laney are learning about the Day of the Dead at school, and Kaya even made an Ofrenda with all her dead relatives and friends. Including the goldfish she had for 3 days before convincing our au pair Angelica that she could change the water herself but not realizing she had to treat the water. Poor little fishy, but he earned a perch on the Ofrenda.