Another Thanksgiving weekend is (almost) in the books, and I can honestly say we've had a great weekend. This has not always been the case. But this year, I was determined not to let the long weekend get the better of us. I actually made a 5x3 chart with Wed-Sun. down the left column followed by columns for morning and afternoon each day. In this way I sketched out some ideas of activities to fill the days. And, yes, I felt a little silly making a chart about my holiday weekend, but it really helped to have planned ahead, knowing which friends were in town for the boys to play with, and which activities such as movies or roller skating were limited to certain times.

Here's how Ed came home from school on Tuesday (should have taken the picture sooner--the beard didn't start out quite so bedraggled. Nothing says Thanksgiving quite like a kid in a paper pilgrim hat.

On Wednesday we made pies for Thursday. Ever since we read Amelia Bedelia for the first time, the boys have been asking for lemon meringue pie. And of course they had to have pumpkin too. Both pies were consumed with gusto after Grandma's delicious Thanksgiving feast on Thursday. (P.S. we skipped the meringue and went with Cool Whip instead, which led to Daniel's hilarious quip when I was persuading Holly to keep some of the leftover pie as we were leaving. "We don't need all this pie," I said. Daniel didn't miss a beat: "But we DO need all the Cool Whip!")

On Friday we took a trip to Davenport to visit the Putnam Museum, where our membership gives us free entry and also included four IMAX movie tickets. After spending the afternoon exploring the permanent exhibits, we took in a late afternoon showing of Puss in Boots in 3D.

This part of the museum was focused on the river. We were a little worried that there wouldn't be enough to occupy them until the movie started. Little did we know they'd spend an hour climbing in and out of this boat and attempting to walk around wearing the flippers, pretending to be sea divers.

We didn't know if Daniel would look up from his slushee long enough to see the movie, but in the end it did hold his attention. The kids didn't really like wearing the glasses, but still enjoyed the show. We also managed to get our outdoor lights hung and take a family bike ride on Thursday morning, since it was a 60-degree Thanksgiving day in Iowa this year. What a treat!

Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon we had friends over to play. Two words can be used to describe foul-weather playdates for boys: loud and messy. OK, three words--add "fun." Saturday evening the whole family went roller skating at the community center. At dinner before skating, Daniel was being quite squirmy and ended up tumbling out of his chair. He seemed  quite perplexed when he landed on the floor and declared, "These are NOT my good falling-down pants!" We attempted to stifle our guffaws enough to inquire as to what the qualities of good falling down pants were. He said he thought his sweatpants would be better because they're soft. (He was wearing jeans, which is unusual, as the button/zipper is problematic for someone who ALWAYS waits until the very last possible second before dashing to the bathroom to take care of his personal business.)

We will have to remember to wear "good falling-down pants" for the next roller skating adventure, as you can see in this video John prepped. Be sure to stick around for the grand finale of our holiday weekend: Edward's first loose tooth falling out.