This year we skipped our annual trip to the water park.

Instead, we spent the morning delivering Thanksgiving meals to families in need.

We also walked Willie, our neighbor’s dog, three times today – Ben in the morning, Aaron midday, and Sam in the evening. The kids are earning money this vacation dog walking.

In the afternoon, we stuffed envelopes. Tomorrow we will send out Jack’s Bar Mitzvah invites.

And in the evening, we had Thanksgiving dinner.

It was a very low key kind of day. Many times I thought about the things I had to do but then I realized everything was closed, so it would have to wait.

Adam has been working crazy hours recently, many mornings I wake up to hear him skirting out of the bed at 3 or 4 in the morning. Having a full day off was like a week’s vacation for him.

I was grateful for things big and small. I was very grateful for some pressure free time for all of us. Grateful to be together spending the day with each other. I was also grateful I found the match for my favorite glove, the cashmere lined leather gloves my sister got me for my birthday one year. Grateful to see how serious and committed all of the kids were for their new job, dog walking.

Also, I thought you might enjoy seeing Sam and Aaron’s take on “How to Cook a Turkey”, which was sent home from school yesterday.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my loyal readers! Hope you had a very grateful day.

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Sam has shown renewed interest in his collection of army men.

In fact, during the strike the kids were so tired of their electronics they actually started to play together again.

It was beautiful to see.

They spent days building different forts and having play fights.

And, while all this was going on, one of Sam’s tooth fell out.

As you may remember from previous posts, the tooth fairy always leaves a scavenger hunt that leads to the tooth fairy money.

And she likes to theme these scavenger hunts according to things the kids are interested in at the time.

Like army men.

It was absolutely adorable to watch him find all the different scenes that the tooth fairy set up for each clue.

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This year it snowed all day on the day of Halloween.

We were home for the teacher’s strike watching the weather. For once in their lives the kids were hoping for less snow, not more.

Usually I let the kids have their friends over to trick of trick with and this year was no exception.

I was surprised how many parents asked if we were still trick or treating, due to the weather. To that I answered, “Trick or treat of die!”

Adam bundled all the kids up in their long underwear, poor Sam was wearing four layers, if you include the costume.

We still managed to get a ton of candy. Probably more than we would have if the crowds were out in full force. And worse than that, because of the smaller crowds, we had a ton of leftover candy that I ate for days. Well, I guess by now I’d have to say I ate the leftover candy for weeks. Okay, fine, I’m still eating it. I’m terrible! And a total hypocrite. While the kids are only allowed to eat a certain amount every day, I’m shoving it into my mouth all time of the day. Sometimes when all the kids are out of the room I’ll sneak more, like a relapsed smoker whose loved ones don’t know yet. It’s bad, people.

For the kids, full size candy bars, the measure of success for Halloween, hovered around 15 bars for each kid.

By now, they are totally over their still over flowing bags of candy and have gone back to the regular desserts. Which means I’m sneaking into their bags now, since all the good candy is gone and all that is left in our leftover candy bowl is lots of starburst and sour patch kids.

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Why haven’t I been blogging, you ask?

Well, it’s complicated. It involves over a month of either sick kids or the Chicago Public School Strike, which lasted 11 days.

Even after the strike, the kids had another three days off the following week.

Aaron told me the other day that he has missed so much school, he will probably have to repeat the second grade!

So what did we do while the strike was on?

We had playdates. Lots of playdates with other kids.

And we also played with each other.

There was a lot of dress up play.

Or going for Pokemon Go walks together.

They even helped with the shopping.

We finished the homework packet that was given out in preparation for the strike.

And moved our science fair project along.

We also visited a pumpkin patch.

And took advantage of free Museum days.

First at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Then at the Field Museum.

It was nice to be with the kids, but exhausting too. Normally by November I feel like I’m all caught up from ignoring everything I am suppose to do over the summer, but this year, I’m still feeling behind.

As of today, I have two weeks to pack in all the stuff I should have been doing all last month, then it’s time for Thanksgiving break…

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