Thanksgiving recap

Jon and I have been joking that we have reached a milestone in our lives. Have you achieved "grown up" status when you spend Thanksgiving in your own home and cook your own dinner? Joking about it helped me not be so down.

Yes- we celebrated Thanksgiving here, by ourselves, just our little family. The food we made was actually really good (if I do say so myself). We brined and roasted a small turkey breast, roasted garlic and used it in our mashed potatoes, and steamed fresh green beans which we ate plain-not in casserole form (per Jon). I made rolls (from my Mom's awesome, yummy, no-fail recipe), cranberry jello salad (also a favorite from my childhood- I was the only one who ate it this year), cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries (really easy to do, I just followed the recipe on the bag of cranberries), and 2 pies. After learning from Julie (as close to an expert as possible) last December, I decided that I wanted to be really good at making pies. Well I promptly forgot about this desire as the year progressively got crazier (I had a baby, moved, worked full-time, then moved again). So for Thanksgiving, I pulled out my paper from said demo and tried my best to recreate what I had made a year ago under heavy tutelage. I decided to make two pies because I knew Jon wanted a pecan one and I knew he would want to eat the whole thing himself and although I like pecan pie, if there is a choice, I prefer fruit pie. While making the filling for my pie, I was also making the afore mentioned cranberry sauce on the stove. I decided to throw in a few cranberries with my apples. The result was a tart, absolutely yummy, pink apple-cranberry mixture. I was pleasantly surprised by how the two pies turned out. They didn't reach my personal standards of pie perfection, but I thought they turned out pretty well considering it has been a year since my last attempt. I'm thinking about making a pie every week until Christmas so I can get more practice in.

I love going shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. Was any one else totally surprised to see some stores opening at 4 am? I think that's craziness. As usual, I perused the ads to see what items I just had to get. Unfortunately, there was really nothing that I absolutely had to have. Except for a 100 pack of DVD-Rs for only $6.99 at Best Buy. But I decided that it wasn't worth getting up early (in the freezing cold) to door-bust only one item for $6.99. So I stayed home. I did go out at about 9 am to Target. We only have one Target close to us which was apparent by the ridiculously long lines snaking through the store. After much deliberation, I did end up standing in line for a few items. I somehow got in a fast moving line, so it wasn't so bad. Then I went over to Best Buy and sure enough, the DVD-Rs were long gone. But I did get a movie for Jon for only $2.49. It felt kind of funny when I got up to the register and the guy said "That'll be $2.68" with a smirk on his face. I ended up going back out shopping later that evening with Jonas in tow. He looked so cute all bundled up. And yes, I realize that he is too big for this car seat, time to switch.

On our last day of nice weather, the day before Thanksgiving, I attempted to take picture of the kids for our family Christmas card. I only got 7 shots and as fate would have it, none of them turned out decent. I'm trying to decide what to do because it has been raining and cold since then so there is virtually no sign of vegetation left to use as a backdrop. Below is Maryn after the photo shoot. I wish I could have done that too.

My sister is coming to visit for Christmas and I am so excited! Among other things, we are planning on going to see this exhibit on Christmas Eve. And thanks for the early Christmas present!