Thanksgiving 2008

The long Thanksgiving weekend is over. I was so busy doing, that I had no time to blog about the doing! =) My weekend started on Wednesday (boy, do I wish I could say that more often!). It was a rainy, gloomy day outside... perfect to get cooking! As usual, everything that was to be served on the big day was to be homemade, so there was plenty to do. I made the pumpkin pie, the croutons for my homemade apple sausage stuffing and, for the first time ever, homemade cranberry sauce. It was such a fun day, being alone in my house, listening to Christmas music and cooking away. All the boys got home around 3 and I ran Ben to his 15 month checkup (see next post for the details on that), and ran a couple other errands with my littlest sidekick. Because our fridge was so stocked with the makings of a Thanksgiving dinner, and the fact that I would be cooking all day the next day, we decided that In n Out was the way to go for dinner. =) After the boys were in bed, Andrew and I set out to clean the house.

Thanksgiving day was awesome. My parents came over mid-morning, and we all had a pretty low key day, chasing kids, drinking wine and enjoying each other's company. Our new friends Wade, Cynthia, Lil' Wade (not Wade Jr.) and Mason, from church came over for dinner and we all had a really nice time. The food was awesome if I do say so myself. We had herb roasted turkey, apple sausage stuffing, fruited sweet potatoes with struesel topping, mashed potatoes with herb butter, steamed green beans, homemade cranberries and jalepeno cheddar cornbread muffins. You should be sorry you missed it. =) After dinner we took the boys to the park to work off some of that food, and then came back home for pie!

Somehow Cynthia talked me into going Black Friday shopping with her at the crack of dawn. She, being midly crazy, wanted to go to Toys R Us. Toys R Us. On Black Friday. Sounds like walking through the gates of hell to me, but maybe it won't be so bad. It was so bad. The 2 lines went from the front to the back of the store. After finding a few decent deals for her kids (she's got to buy 2 of everything having 2 year old twins!) we got in line and waited... and waited... and waited. We were in line for about 20-30 minutes, and had not yet gotten to the half-way mark. All that waiting gave her time to second guess her purchases, and in the end we ditched the cart and got the heck out of there. But we had a nice time anyway. =)

On Saturday we decided to put up our Christmas Tree. Josh did a great job helping decorate the tree, and of course wanted to hang three or four ornaments all on the same branch. =) Our tree looks awesome with all of our special memory ornaments. It's always so fun to talk about what each ornament represents. After the tree was up, we decided to go visit Santa at the mall. We got there early enough in the day that there wasn't much of a line, and the mall was virtually dead. We thought this would be the year that they wouldn't let us take our own picture, when we saw a sign asking us to "refrain from using your own camera." What? yes, I want a picture with Santa, but I'm not about to pay $14.99 for one 4x6. Sorry kids. Mommy is way too cheap for that. But I sweetly asked one of Santa's helpers and she told me it would be okay. It's not the greatest of pictures, but I got my picture so I'm happy. =)

On Sunday evening some dear friends that moved to Tennessee a few years ago were in town and came over for dinner. Thanks to them, we finally broke in our firepit that has been sitting unused on our back patio for about a year! It was so fun to sit and chat, roast marshmallows and make smores. I think that will have to be a tradition whenever they come to visit!

So now it's back to work, back to school and the normal everyday life. But the Christmas season is here, and I am so excited about all of the things we will be doing over the next month. I LOVE the holidays! =)