Count Your Blessings

Even though Thanksgiving has come and gone, here is a video to remind us to always count our blessings.

Get Your Gobble On!

We hosted our annual college Thanksgiving dinner at our house this past Thursday for the college students in our church.  There were about 15 guests and they were, as usual, very fun and gracious.  My potatoes were way too garlicky and my gravy was more like mayonnaise in consistency, but nobody said anything or drew attention to them.

The "Fruit Gobbler" joined us again, this year!  I believe he is now a Thanksgiving tradition around our house.

I simplified the meal a little this year because we had a lot of leftovers last year.  This year's feast consisted of a turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, rolls, mashed potatoes and stuffing.

For dessert, Ruth, from church, made us an apple and a pumpkin pie (delicious!) and I made a chocolate chip walnut pie.  Yum!

We didn't have as many leftovers, this year, but enough to save for our actual Thanksgiving so that I don't have to cook a whole other feast.  The kids even liked the food! Woo-hoo!

I am thankful that the Lord has blessed us with these wonderful people! Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Squared

Last week, we hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for all the college kids before they headed home for the break.  They are always a fun group to have around.  They are very gracious, helpful and full of life.  

They easily devoured a 22lb turkey, but they weren't as ravenous for the other side dishes.  

The kids gobbled up the "Fruit Turkey" feathers.

Oh well, I guess that's what happens when you have a group comprised of mostly boys.  Just give them meat!

I really do love all the planning and cooking, I just need a few more years of practice to really get the timing down of when you cook everything so that it's all ready on time.

Thankfully, a lady from church made these pies for dessert.  Yum!  Pumpkin and apple pies.  I made a walnut chocolate chip pie, as well.  Every holiday needs some chocolate.

To celebrate the actual Thanksgiving holiday, Brad, the kids and I just hung out at home.  It was nice and low key.  

We went out in the morning and took a family photo for our Christmas card picture.

Then, I made Brad go and lie down (he had a fever of 101) and the kids and I went out front to roller skate, ride bikes, push strollers, and race!  Aria really liked being a part of the races with the big kids.  She liked when I'd say, "Ready, set, go!".  She definitely needs a baby stroller for Christmas.  (Brad came home early the next day and let me take a nap.  What a guy!)

While I finished getting dinner ready, Brad and the kids drew and colored their Thanksgiving place mats.

These are Cadence and Finn's Thanksgiving turkeys from Sunday School.  They wrote what they are thankful for on the hand print feathers.

The kids didn't eat much food (Finn's eating his utensils in the top picture) , and I found myself thinking, "I wish they'd eat more so that we didn't have so many leftovers."  I know there will come a day, though, when I'll be wishing they didn't eat so much.

I made sweet potato pie for dessert.  My favorite!  My pie plate is too shallow, so I made it in this casserole dish.  They are thick slices of pie.:)

We have quite a bit of turkey leftover, so my mission is to find new recipes to use turkey in.  Last night we had Turkey Taco Soup.  It was pretty good.  I'll probably make Turkey Enchiladas one night, but that's as far as I've gotten so far.

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving celebrations actually started last week. We had the joy of hosting the college bible study at our house and serving them a Thanksgiving feast! There were about 10 of us.

It was my first time making a big Thanksgiving feast. It is amazing, you start cooking around noon and just keep cooking until you eat. That doesn't include the dishes you were able to cook ahead of time, either. I can now see how helpful a double oven would be. Just getting the timing of when to cook all the dishes coordinated was a feat in itself. All that to say, it was a lot of fun and such a blessing to serve all those guys and share good company for an evening.

Finn sat next to Greggor, who kept asking Finn if he'd like different foods to eat. Finn's answer was always, "Uh, Yesth". He was a good little eater. His favorite food was the cranberry sauce. Cadence was a little more shy around the group, but she leaned over to me while we were eating and said, "It is so nice to have so many friends here." She was a bit pickier with her food, but she did eat turkey and a roll. We had an 18 lb. turkey and there was nothing left at the end of the night. For dessert, we had pumpkin pie and chocolate and pumpkin walnut brownies. Yum!

Today, the actual Thanksgiving day, we enjoyed time together as a family. Thankfully, we had enough sides left over from last week, so all we had to make was the turkey. We got a smaller turkey for the 5 of us and have plenty of leftovers. Yeah! I love turkey leftovers for sandwiches. Yum! Aria even ate turkey...pureed turkey, that is.

After dinner, Brad got out the Christmas decorations and we put up the tree! Finn and Cadence helped put the ornaments on the tree and Aria played with the jingle bells.

Pugsley even joined in on the fun and got into the Christmas spirit.

The other day I found matching pajamas for the kids at Old Navy. I was sooooo excited to find boy and girl matching clothes. Very cute! Cadence and Finn wanted to put their p.j.'s on as soon as we got home for the store, at 11:30am. So, they had a pajama day.

Here are three piglets in a bathtub!

Cadence had picture day at her preschool last week. I asked her what she wanted to wear and she picked this Korean Hanbok that our friends gave her when she turned 1. We let her put it on at home, but not for the school picture. It was a little small and a bit over the top for a school picture.:) She looks good, though.

Happy Thanksgiving!