An Excellent Thanksgiving

Wowie...I can't believe it's been almost a week since Thanksgiving!  At this time last Wednesday we were in the car headed to Wisconsin.  We didn't get there until eleven o'clock at night - we were so tired!  We stayed at Katie's aunt and uncle's house, and when they showed us our room we collapsed on the bed and could have slept just like that in our clothes.  We could hardly keep our eyes open!

The next day, people were cooking Thanksgiving dinner already when we got up for breakfast!  They gave Katie the job of dumping peanuts and M&M's into a bowl for an appetizer - they figured it was one of the few things she couldn't mess up, since she is such an awful cook.  She almost got it right, but she didn't put in enough M&M's.  You can never have too many of those in your trail mix. :-)

There was a very nice bathroom at the house with lots of mirrors.  Hodel and I got changed into our Thanksgiving dresses and tried to make our hair look perfect.  Katie's aunt had the house all decorated for Christmas, and there were even Christmas decorations in the bathroom! 

The big table looked very pretty with all the good china and silverware out.  Once the table was set it was hard not to nag about when dinner would be ready!  Everything smelled so good and we were so hungry.

Our pictures kind of stop here, though, because as soon as we ate we were ready for bed again  We were all in a turkey coma!!  Hehe.

On Friday we had a very exciting day - we did not go Black Friday shopping; instead we went to the Pabst Mansion!  The Pabst Mansion is an old Victorian Era home that used to belong to the Pabst family, who got rich making beer.  Eww.  Now it is a museum you can visit to see how it might have looked back then.  The house was all decorated for Christmas and had a tree in every room - sometimes more than one tree!  Hodel and I were in awe.  One room had a gigantic dollhouse in it, and we could have looked at that for hours!  The only bad thing about the Pabst Mansion is that you are not allowed to take pictures inside it. :-(  We were very disappointed about that.  The only picture we could take was one of the outside, and it was even hard to get the whole house in the picture because it is so big and right in the middle of downtown Milwaukee, so there wasn't much room to back up without going into the street!  As ornate and fancy as it looks on the outside, it was ten times more inside.

If you go to the Pabst Mansion website, you can see some photos of the inside.  It was even cooler when we saw it, though, because of the Christmas decorations!  http://pabstmansion.com/index.html

And now tomorrow is December 1st - can you believe it??  Hanukkah and Christmas are coming fast!!

Off to Wisconsin We Go!

School is done, work is done, the luggage is ready and so are we!  In a couple of hours we will be leaving for our Thanksgiving trip to Wisconsin.  The land of cheese!!  Hehe.  Have an awesome holiday weekend, everyone!

Cinnamon Roll Day!

One of my favorite things about the holiday season is that we get to have cinnamon rolls for breakfast one morning every weekend.  We start having them the first weekend after Halloween and go right through New Years.  They are so good!  I always thought the regular cinnamon rolls with white frosting were my favorites, but today we had orange-flavored cinnamon rolls with orange frosting, and man, were they good!!  They were also made like a spiral, so you could grab the end and unroll it as you ate.  Hodel and I shared one, since they were rather big.  On cinnamon roll days we don't have to eat breakfast at the table, either - we can eat in the living room and watch cartoons on the big T.V. while we eat.  Hodel and I mostly talked about our Thanksgiving plans, though.  We only have to be in school for three days, and then we are going to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving!!  I can't wait.

We have also started putting up Christmas decorations.  We decorated the little mini blue spruce tree this weekend.  It is almost small enough for Nancy and Rosie, so they helped us.  I can't wait till it gets dark tonight so we can sit in the living room with the little tree all lit up!

A Thanksgiving Party

Today Hodel and I were invited to a Thanksgiving party!  My friend Tora from school and tap class hosted it with her cousin, Skye.  Tora told us to bring our dolls, so I brought Nancy and Hodel brought Rosie. 

I've never met Skye before, and she was really nice, and wore awesome blue glasses.  I wanted to ask her if I could try them on, because if they look good on me maybe I will get a pair like that the next time I need new glasses.  But I was too shy to ask her.  Maybe if I get to know her a little more I will.

Then my good friends Min and Becca arrived with their dolls, and we all hung out and talked and laughed about all kinds of stuff. 

Of course, at a Thanksgiving party the main thing you have to do is eat a big meal, and we did!  We even got to drink yummy apple cider out of Tora's mom's good china glasses.

Our dolls had their very own tiny table in front of the fireplace, and they had a very nice Thanksgiving tea together.

 

Before dinner was over we all went around the table and said what we were thankful for.  We all agreed we were thankful for the big things like family and friends and our houses and food and all those very important things, so we tried to come up with some more unusual things to be thankful for.  Hodel said she was thankful for getting to act in plays and have so much fun working with the other actors and actresses to entertain people.  At first I was going to say I was thankful for books, because they help you to imagine you are all sorts of people doing all sorts of things, but I then I thought of something even better, and said I was thankful for imagination itself.  Because while I can imagine all sorts of things, I can't imagine what my life would be like without an imagination.  Dull and boring - I know that much!  I'm very glad my life is anything but. :-)

Dance Class!

When I visited my friend Livia in New York a few summers ago and saw her tap dance, I wanted to take lessons really bad.  I didn't think I would be very good but Livia said I should do it anyway, so I did.  And I've gotten a lot better since those first lessons!  I go to tap class every Thursday from 3:30 to 5:00, and Hodel gets to come with me while she's here.  Hodel has acted in lots of musicals and you have to know how to dance for some of them, so she knows how to tap dance and is pretty good!  So she fits right in to my class.

Before class starts we all stretch out our muscles and talk.  The blonde girl doing the splits with her whole chest on the floor is named Jessica.  She is the best dancer in our class, and I try not to be jealous of her, but sometimes she brags a lot and I don't like that. :-(  She is always in the front row for our dances.

My teacher is Miss Adams, and she is the same teacher I've had ever since I started dancing.  I love her!  She is so nice and fun and doesn't make anyone feel bad if we make mistakes, as long as we are trying our best.  As soon as she comes into the studio we all say hello and then get right to work.

Right after Halloween we started working on our Christmas dance.  Every holiday season my dance school takes a day to go to nursing homes and perform our Christmas dances for the patients.  We get to miss part of the school day and everything.  This year my class is doing our dance to a jazzy version of "Jingle Bells."  The music is really fast and I have to concentrate very hard so I don't miss any of the steps!

Sometimes we have to do the steps for Miss Adams one at a time or in smaller groups.  Hodel and I did our steps together, and we didn't mess up once!  We were very in sync - it helps that we can practice together at home! :-)

A Sunny Sunday

Guess which tree in the neighborhood is the last to lose its leaves?  The pretty maple tree in our front yard.  The sun lit it all up and made the light in the living room look golden.  I love it!