Turkey Day

Thanksgiving day was a nice relaxing day here at our house. We had some friends come over for the afternoon.

The pre-dinner entertainment. The kids introduced Mel and Sunshine to the Wii.

I had made most of the food a day or two before. We had:

1. Sweet potato casserole with a pecan, butter, brown sugar and Honey Bunches of Oats topping.
2. Mashed potatoes made with sour cream and cream cheese. I made them the day before and baked them before the dinner. They tasted like twice baked potatoes!
3. Carrots in a brown sugar/butter glaze
4. Corn
5. Rolls, Pickles, Olives, and Cranberry Sauce. The four favorite kid foods on the table.
6. Dressing. This is from my hero The Pioneer Woman. Her website/blog has quickly become one of my favorites. (She recently came out with her first cookbook. I would love to own it. Hint, hint.) Its made with cornbread and french bread. I even made both of those myself. Lots of herbs and stock. It reminded me of the bread at Macaroni Grill. I liked it so much I had it for breakfast this morning.


7. And the highlight of the meal:




It looks a little charred. Okay, a lot charred. But underneath that rough exterior was a moist, tender and oh so delicious bird. It was one of my favorite turkey's I've ever eaten.

8. For dessert we had PIE! Apple, Mincemeat, and Pecan. Our friends brought the apple and mincemeat. I made the pecan. Again it was from The Pioneer Woman. John declared it delicious!!! It was incredibly easy to make. The kids enjoyed the mincemeat and the apple. The rest of us enjoyed, well, all of them.

We were able to talk to Mom, Dad, Amy and Justin and many of my cousins over skype. We all enjoyed talking and seeing everyone.

Fashionistas

My kiddos are on the cutting edge of fashion and are trying to start a new trend.






Actually Tyler has been doing this almost daily. The girls decided to join in and came downstairs with their pj shirts backwards.

The Chronicles of Halloween

Halloween is a year long event in our home. The next years Halloween costumes begin the design process as we are traipsing around collecting candy from strangers we would otherwise never let our children talk to.

This year the kids had all decided they would be a member of the Imagination Movers. Tyler wanted to be Smitty because he had a guitar. Karena was going to be Nina because their names rhymed. Hannah was going to be Warehouse Mouse. I figured Karena's and Hannah's costumes would be easy. I finally bought a pattern and fabric for Tyler's costume and cut it all out. After 3 mistakes and 3 sessions of seam ripping I set it aside for a breather.

During that breather Hannah and Tyler changed their mind. Never mind that they had discussed these costumes for exactly 49 weeks of the past year. I also convinced Karena to change her costume, too. (Truthfully I was very nervous no one would know who she was and it would hurt her feelings.) After several trips to the store to determine that yes, indeed, Halloween costumes are extremely over-priced I decided to make the costumes.

Hannah wanted to be a Disney princess. After several of her choices were nixed by me we settled on Snow White. I really enjoyed making her dress. It was nice to see her wearing it and know I made it. I also liked knowing it might actually last more than 2 or 3 wearings before seams start coming apart as so many other of our previously store bought costumes.


Karena's second choice was a My Little Pony. Unfortunately her very uncool Mommy does not pay attention to the different colors of the ponies. Which began an hour long battle over what I was willing to spend on her costume to make her look like the BLUE one. After a trip to Wal-mart (my least favorite place to take kids or myself) we finally settled on a $5 cat costume.


Tyler wanted to be Batman. It didn't matter that he had no idea who or what Batman was. He had a Batman toy and wanted to be Batman. After consulting with my sewing guru (Thanks Mom!) I decided to make/buy his costume. I luckily found a Batman t-shirt at Old Navy that he can wear for a while. I got an adult vampire cape from CVS for free!!! (My love affair with CVS is a story for another post.) I bought a black toboggan for the hat. After resizing the cape I took the leftover material and made ears for the hat.


Now that you have heard the complicated and long winded story of the costumes please enjoy some pictures of the many Halloween parties and events we attended.

Ward Trunk or Treat

Collecting candy after playing the games

A few good action shots


Tyler didn't know the games were over. He saw his favorite game unmanned and decided he was going to be in charge!

Tyler and his friend held hands the entire time they went "Hallway treating." It was raining too hard to go trunk-or-treating.

Enjoying the fruits of their labors!

Girl Scout activity

Trick or Treating

It was 40 degrees outside. Bundling up was required.
(Tyler has on his warm clothes under his costume. It added a few "muscles" for Batman.)


I have really no idea what he's doing here. Actually I rarely know what the boy is doing.

I have lipstick on my nose!

My past few days

I've struggled for various reasons with the past few days. I've wanted to post about Halloween and our new floors. But to be quite honest I was too tired and worn out to do much of anything. So I thought I would just leave you with this:




I may be wrong but I think this is from her visit to Nashville's Time Out for Women.

Crazy Love

I'm getting this CD today! I can't wait to hear it.

A New Word for Webster

The background: A friend of ours gave the kids a goody box of fun stuff for Halloween. Some of it included a toy brush and mirror.

Tyler and Karena are playing barbershop.

Tyler to Karena: Come over here and I will barble you.