Thanksgiving, etc.

As we have every year since about 2001, Thanksgiving was at our house this year.  We were down 5 people though since my younger sister and her family moved to Florida back in May of this year.  But we still had a nice family gathering with my Mom, my older sister and her family and two of my aunts (my Mom's sisters).

Looking ahead, I'm pretty excited about Christmas this year.  Last year I had a hard time figuring out what to buy everyone for Christmas.  I think they liked what they got, but I don't think they were 'blown away' by their gifts.  This year I bought the kids each an iPod Touch (don't wig out - we didn't win the lottery, I bought them all off eBay so I saved more than half what the newest 4th gen costs).  I think they are going to absolutely love them - just my gut feeling.  I've found tons of inexpensive educational games and ebooks on iTunes - and also PBS kids TV shows.  Awesome!  Can't wait to see their reactions!

This month we also moved our old PC and the printer out of the 3-seasons porch (off Tim's and my bedroom) and put it in the dining room for use as a 'family computer'.  I cleaned up the hard drive and added a gig of RAM to the motherboard.  It was running very sluggishly - now it runs like a champ and didn't cost me that much to fix :).  After that, I bought and loaded several kids learning games on it.  The girls all ask me constantly now if they can play on the computer (they actually started asking before I even had a chance to get everything set up).  The dining room is a little more cramped now, but it think it is well worth it.

In other news, our friends from church are leaving this week to travel to China to adopt their little boy Jesiah.  Their family had a really rough time this past year, but are ending on a positive note by finally being given the green light to go to get their little one.  Keep them (Nathan & Michelle) in your prayers if you are so inclined, they are leaving two small children behind here in the States while they travel.  I know they are worried about all their children - near and far - at this time.