Thanksgiving by Eva

We had Thanksgiving at our house this year. We had Zeke over on Thursday and Julie spent the weekend with us. There were only four of us eating (plus the kids, but they don't count as far as volume of food consumed. They hardly eat anything. I'm amazed that they even grow.)

I LOVED playing games and enjoying our small family group. We stayed up really late. Ahh! I don't remember the last time we did that.

I was a bit nervous about all the cooking. Some friends of mine suggested using a turkey oven bag for cooking the turkey. It turned out FABULOUS! Oh my goodness. It was so flavorful and super yummy. I seriously am going to make turkey again soon. Turkey is no longer a once-a-year occasion in this house. =) I even made gravy with the drippings. There was room for improvement with the gravy…

Here I am making deviled eggs. We LOVE deviled eggs and egg salad. Morgan and Julie peeled the eggs, which I appreciated. I don't enjoy peeling eggs. The deviled eggs were the ONLY dish to be finished off on Thursday. We had leftovers of everything else!

The ladies:

The gentlemen:

So here's a quiz for you: Are these the "before" pictures or the "after" pictures?

Here's a closer look:

Those are actually "after" pictures! Haha. Our fridge is still full. We are working on it, though. =)

Do you see those yams? Oooh yum. I've adapted a recipe from the internet and added PECANS! They were super yummy. It turns out that I do have experience making many of these Thanksgiving dishes… stuffing, deviled eggs, yams, jello salad (Teresa's), and mashed potatoes. I've struggled with mashed potatoes, as you may have read on my blog before =), but I finally feel like I have a grip on them. *phew*

Having Thanksgiving at my house wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Because we were well prepared and had planned everything we had a nice non-stressful weekend.

My Sewing Room

Here are the long awaited pictures. I actually took some time to clean the room before taking pictures… =) So it looks as nice as it ever has for these pictures. =)

This is my new swivel chair. My old one was one that the missionaries left it behind. I understand why - it was SO annoying. It was very squeaky. This room happens to be right below Jordan's room, so whenever I'd move I was sure he could hear it. This was a problem because the only time that I can sew during the day is when Jordan is sleeping. So I bought a new chair at Walmart for $20. Twenty tiny dollars. This quiet little chair cost less than one of my Etsy binders. Incredible.

My piles of fabric were quickly becoming un-navigatable. I even had several pieces of the same fabric in different piles. Yikes. I needed a way to organize my fabric. I went to Shopko and bought shelves. $15 each. Shesh - can't beat that price! And I bought maybe 15 poster boards and cut out mini bolts about 10 inches tall and 4 inches wide. I wrapped each piece of fabric around a bolt, and the result it what you see below:

I have a "guest chair" in my sewing room. Lizzy sits there and plays with her dolls while I sew during the day. Sometimes Morgan accompanies me with his Security Now podcasts. I like having somebody in the room with me.

By the way, this is the room that Morgan and I painted and the missionaries used to study in.

How to Play in the Pantry

Lizzy: Okay Jordan, today we are going to learn how to play in the pantry. We've already opened the child proof doors, so the hard part is done.

Lizzy: First you stick out your arm and grab a can.

Jordan: Like this?

Lizzy: Yes, very good.

Food Network

My doctor's office has the Food Network on all the time. It has been inspiring, to say the least. So at home I've started watching clips online from the Food Network. It helps me be a bit more excited about cooking. And it really does keep my attention because I will use these recipes and tips in my real life! It also keeps my kid's attention, I don't know why. One thing that I really wish I did better at was cooking. I wish I WANTED to cook. Lately I've been hating it.

This is Baked French Toast. YUM! We usually buy wheat bread, but I've decided that I like white bread better for french toast. This recipe, actually, calls for French bread! Go figure.

I made myself a placemat to keep my planner! It is so cute. I was thrilled to have a reason to buy some of the ADORABLE fall fabric that they have at JoAnns. Now my desk looks significantly neater because it looks like my planner, cell phone, camera, pen, and grocery list actually belong on the desk.

Looks less cluttered. Got to love that!

Lizzy is 3

Lizzy had a little birthday party in September. She's 3 now. She was a bit worried that we were telling her that she has to answer "3" instead of "2" when someone asks her how old she is. Zeke, being playful, said "How old are you? Five?" So Lizzy started answering "5" for a while.

A couple of Lizzy's friends came over and they had cupcakes. Actually, we are in November now and Lizzy STILL talks about her birthday cupcakes. She talked to my parents on the phone last week and told them about her birthday and her cupcakes.

Lizzy had a spotlight at preschool. So I was given a school assignment. That felt rather strange having been out of school for a few years. Using cardboard, fabric and pins, I made a poster of a bunch of things she likes. She loves dolls, snow white, Shrek, apple juice, and brownies. Actually since the cupcake birthday, she hasn't been asking for brownies anymore, come to think of it. She also likes the "Popcorn Popping" song, thus the picture of popping pop corn on the right.

Earlier today she said, "Wait a minute. I have an idea! I want more apple juice."

She had picture day, too. Here she is all dressed up and her hair done really cute:

Jordan is starting to enjoy books. And by the way he is walking now. He just decided to. Today we had our first snow. Morgan put him down in the yard, Jordan took a step and fell into the snow, then crawled back to the house as fast as he could, crying. Getting the kids ready to play in the snow takes longer than it does for the kids to actually play in the snow. Especially if they run back in crying.

Halloween 2011

Jordan wore the monkey costume that Lizzy wore last year.

I LOVE the tail in the back. It's just so perfect trailing out and wagging behind him.

Lizzy was a LADYBUG! I saw this cute costume on Etsy months ago and ordered it. It's been sitting in our closet since then.

It's going to take a couple of pictures to show you everything on her costume.

The Etsy costume came with the headband (in the first picture), the red tutu with black dots glued on, and the wings. I bought a red turtleneck and black pants that she can wear for the rest of the season.

Lizzy liked trick or treating, except for the dogs. So many people have dogs. So every time we knocked at a door I had to hold her up in case there was a dog. She got lots of candy. The best was a full normal sized package of peanut M&M's. YUM. Oh, and Lizzy got a little bite-sized BUTTERFINGER! She gave me a bite and it was soooo yummy. And we went the extra mile this year and got chocolate for our trick or treaters! It's significantly more money. A good $20 instead of $8. I personally think that the chocolate candies are soo much better than the sugar ones like lollypops or jolly ranchers. I was glad, too, that we had extra Kit Kats. I haven't had any of these candies in a long time. I never buy them. It feels like a sin to buy them. I think I'd like to list my favorite candies now:

1. Butterfinger

2. Reeses

3. Kit Kat

4. Peanut M&M's

5. Snickers

I can't think of any more. I probably won't be able to think of any other ones until I see them at the store or the next Halloween comes around. I really don't ever buy candy! Or go down the candy aisle. Nevertheless, the above candies are my favorites.

Pop Kins

Can you guess what "pop kins" means? If you peak ahead to the rest of the pictures then you'll figure it out. =)

We went to a nearby pumpkin patch! Lizzy picked out a small pumpkin and we got one for Jordan, too.

Aimee gave us some baby boy clothes and one of the items was a pumpkin-orange footsie pajama! Oh it is so cute. And you can tell by the above picture that it matched the pumpkins just perfectly.

In Utah there are lots of corn mazes. This was a free corn maze that was more like a walk. So we walked through the corn maze with the kids. It felt like Bermejo - except it was corn stalks instead of sugar cane.

Then the time came to decorate the pumpkins. Jordan had some car stickers and Lizzy had some cupcake stickers to put on their pumpkins.

Lizzy and Jordan played and played with the stickers, but as you may have guessed, by the end of decorating the pumpkins, the pumpkins had no stickers on them.

Julie came by and she got to decorate a squash. =) I LOVE having Julie nearby.