Thanksgiving Dinner!

I know, I know. You're thinking "Thanksgiving? Didn't that happen a couple of weeks ago? Why are we still talking about it?"

Technically, you're right, too. However, in an effort to catch up on my email correspondence, I've gotten way behind on blog posting. We usually try to post on this once a week, but as you can see, it's been two since our last post. It's just, well, I don't know - too much writing to do in too short of a time. By the way, if you're one of those we haven't written in a while and you're miffed, just drop us a line and we'll be sure to get back to you! Nothing makes us happier than seeing a note in our inbox. (See what I've done there? I've subtly made it your fault that we haven't written you? Wasn't that clever?)

Anyway, so, what have we been up to in the past two weeks? Of course, as usual, our days are occupied with language and culture study. I feel like maybe I'm finally getting past the plateau where I've been for a few months, so that's nice. However, we've had time to get into a bit of other things as well in that span. We had originally planned to have our Thanksgiving feast on the Saturday after the official holiday, but our family group was having their birthday celebration that night:

We went to that, which was a good time, even though it seemed to be rather more sparsely attended this year than last. The kids weren't really up for an hour and a half of sitting quietly through the program, so we ate and left.

Back at home, things are running pretty smoothly, with both kids seemingly now settled into the new schedule. Steven certainly knows how to relax:

And I promise we'll get to the Thanksgiving party, but I did want to prove to everyone that Matthew really is standing up now! At 7 months, he's pretty early for this, but he doesn't seem too bright about it sometimes (it's all well and good being able to pull yourself up, but when you lack the balance required to lower yourself without bumping your head on the ground, it's bound to end painfully.)

Since the big Russian holiday is New Year's and not Christmas, they usually don't put up their trees and such until halfway through December, if that early. I had originally made B promise not to put up ours until after the party, but when the party was delayed a week, she couldn't hold back.

She and Lena set up the tree during one of their language sessions, which made for a cultural exchange on what Americans do vs. what Russians do to decorate the tree.

The finished product is below. Interestingly, Russians weave their lights up and down instead of round-and-round the tree, which B likes better. Maybe it will be her decorating choice in the future as well.

Steven really likes being a big brother, I think. When we first brought Matthew home we worried that he would be jealous or resentful, but he has proven to be a really thoughtful big brother. He takes care not to play rough with Matthew, though occasionally he gets excited and forgets. Here he wanted to feed him after watching us do it so many times:
I think we ended up having 20 or so adults plus 4 or 5 kids for the Thanksgiving dinner in the end. The food, as you saw at the top of the post, turned out great. We were going to make it just a chicken dinner, since turkey is so expensive here, but B's language helper really wanted to experience the real thing so she bought us a turkey to fix. It was truly delicious! Everyone chipped in and made stuff, so this year B wasn't responsible for everything - sort of a potluck Thanksgiving.

After the meal we just sat around the living room and chatted. We were able to show them a few American traditions, such as sharing with everyone what you're thankful for ...

... and even breaking the wishbone (Julie won, but she forgot to make a wish, so I guess that particular bit of animism won't be affecting our lives this time around).

And that's about it. Sorry I don't have any new videos or Russian cultural notes for you this time around. Hopefully you'll make up for it by going out and researching how to prepare borshch or learning how to make a fur shapka or something.

I'll leave you with Matthew's post-Thanksgiving thoughts (he crawled his way under his Mom's bedroom table and fell asleep during the party).