Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has come in gone and the next wave of madness has already begun.  Thanksgiving was especially nice this year.  We had family and dear friends with us for the day of gluttony.  Seriously, why in the world do we eat that much food?  And I am the worlds worst about adding one more dish to the menu.  Mark has just stopped commenting on the amount of food that I prepare.  I absolutely love to cook and I can never decide on what exactly to make so, I just make everything.  Mark especially loves the messiness that comes with my cooking everything (note sarcastic undertones).  I should take a picture one day of what it looks like before I clean it up.  Oh heavens, I will not be doing that.  You would all be appalled.

So anyway, we had 13 people here and enough food for twice that many at least.  I started cooking on Monday and my mom and I cooked all day Wednesday.  It was crazy and messy, but it was a lot of fun.  I cooked a 24 lb turkey because more is better, right?  That sucker was almost as big as Julia.    It turned out really good so I was glad that there was plenty left over.  Plenty even after people went back for seconds and thirds.  Although, I have had enough turkey sandwiches to last me for a while.

So now we are on to birthdays, school parties, Christmas break and of course Christmas.  There are so many things to do and honestly, I'm not sure where to begin, but I am trying my best to finish up as much as I can so that when both of the kids are out for Christmas break we can bake cookies, do art projects, watch Christmas movies, and snuggle up and enjoy the break together.  I would prefer that they remember that when they are older rather than remembering their mom running around like a berserk person trying to have everything just right for Christmas.    


 

Trying out our new camera.  This is a pretty accurate glimpse into what life is like around here.  

Excited about his Thanksgiving program at school.  He know that we will all be in attendance and this simple fact makes him all grins.

My little pilgrim

Jack and his friend from school.

Photo shoot day at Ft. Worth Stock Yards.  Very, very nice afternoon.

And of course, the self portrait.  We don't have enough of this exact same picture.  I love each one of them.

In the bottom oven you can see the Parker House rolls that the kids helped make.   

Our Thankful tree.  I loved this and everyone else seemed to enjoy it too.  I saved all of the leaves so that years from now we can see all of the things we were each thankful for.  Some of these were really funny. 

This woman worked all day long on Wednesday.  She was so tired that night that when we put the kids to bed, she ran up to the spare room to get to sleep before I could ask her to do one more thing.  Kidding.  Thank you Mom for all of your help and hard work.