Give THANKS!

I really like Thanksgiving in the US. I’m not sure if it is just my family, but Canadian Thanksgiving wasn’t a really big deal holiday. I feel like here, it starts the holiday season and being with family and eating foods you really shouldn’t. Also, I’m addicted to Black Friday. I know, I know, it’s a disgusting mass of people fighting over material things that they don’t really need etc., etc. I don’t care. It’s so much fun. Anyway, we hosted this year and due to our some of our guests getting sick kids last minute, our dinner for 14 ended up only needing to feed 7. Not going to lie, there is still turkey in the fridge. Let’s have ham for Christmas, shall we? So, I love to cook. I even kind of like to clean, as long as no one is fighting or making a mess right behind me. I love to host things. I love to have friends and family and laughter and food in my house. So, I love holidays. And I’m also learning to let some things go. It doesn’t have to be perfect or on time. Some things will always not turn out. But it will always be a good time. Not that I’m that calm 10 minutes before the company comes, but, I’m doing better.  So, here’s to Thanksgiving and making new traditions with my own little family.

Emma lovingly named her ‘big birdtha’. She was 20.1 lbs of sheer goodness. Isn’t she a beaut? (Note the panic in my eye? That’s right, the crazy was starting to set in.)

And this, my friends, is what I refer to when I say ‘new traditions’. A chocolate peanut butter cheesecake. I wish the picture was better. And I wish there were more pictures. And I mostly wish there was some left… Please find the recipe here. You’re welcome.

And Happy Thanksgiving.

All Hallow’s Eve & Our New Tradition

We love Halloween. We love dressing up and getting candy from strangers. Then we love coming home where Mom takes half of the candy and puts it away to sell to the dentist. Sorry kids, your Mom’s no fun. Anyway, this year we had Tigger (actually just a tiger, but don’t tell him that. I bought the costume last year at Old Navy for $4.50 and convinced him that he didn’t actually want to be Spiderman, he wanted to be Tigger. Again, mother of the year is mine!), a butterfly princess (yes, she was hurt when people guessed fairy princess, fairy, princess or butterfly), and Princess Celestia from My Little Ponies. (There again, no one knew who she was…) Regardless of the costume mishaps, the kids had a great time! I’m a little bummed you can’t see Kaylee’s tail. It was awesome. Pink and blue feather boas. I’m still vacuuming up feathers.

Our new tradition (I have just decreed) was awesome. I had lots of fun, even though it was some work for me. Last year, we were invited to friend’s before trick or treating for a special dinner. We had so much fun we decided to do our own this year. (Also, our friends moved so we had to do it ourselves!) And it was so great this year that I’d like to make it an annual thing. We did it a week or so before Halloween to ease my burden, which was nice. Anyway, we made menus for everyone, and they had to select their drink, side dish, main dish and dessert, all of which had code names. No one was allowed in the kitchen. It was great. I can’t remember all of the code names but I’ll do my best. Here’s what we served: DRINKS; poison, witches brew, mummy juice (aka. green kool-aid, root beer with dry ice, capri suns wrapped like mummies), SIDE DISH; compost, goblin fingers, oozing brains (salad, green beans, green jello), MAIN DISH: scorched jack o’ lantern, blood and guts, and I can’t remember the other thing (english muffin pizzas –cheddar cheese, pepperoni cut to make faces-, spaghetti with meat sauce), DESSERT; troll fingers, melted witch goo, dried bones (sugar cookie fingers with red frosting on the ends, cup of green pudding with witch hat cookie on top, chex mix). That was the best run on sentence EVER. Anyway, it was super awesome fun. And it WILL  happen again. Unfortunately, making that kind of dinner come together for 10 kids and 6 adults (I know, we kept it small this year ;) ), I didn’t get any pics of the food. Which is why I wrote it all down. Somehow I’ve got to remember! We did get some pictures as we were setting up. The kitchen was completely closed off but you get the idea from these shots.

Jack O’ Lantern

We had the best harvest from our garden this year than ever before. This was also the first year I actually paid attention to the garden after the first week. There might be a connection, but I’m not sold on the idea yet. Anyway, we got three  cute little pumpkins from our garden, and then had three more delivered by our awesome insurance man! We didn’t buy a single pumpkin this year but had plenty to carve (and plenty of seeds to roast…yum!).

  

Church

We are LDS (Mormon), if you weren’t aware. That means that our Sunday church meetings are three hours long. We love Church. We love it so much that nearly every week when we get home, Emma gets out all the toys and chairs and she and Kaylee and Eli hold their own Church. Timothy and I usually get to attend and we are all invited to speak. It is pretty much awesome. We love it. And we love that our children love the gospel of Jesus Christ and church! How many parents can say that?! (Promise, I’m pretty sure it was nothing that we did. At least, if it was, I don’t know what it was.)