Thanksgiving
We spent most of Thanksgiving cleaning or organizing. We weren't boycotting the holiday or anything. Rather, we were getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving on the following day, Friday. I'm pretty sure we've only celebrated Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving one time. For many years, we went to Canada to celebrate Thanksgiving with my sister and her family. We would travel on Thanksgiving and eat the big meal the next day. The past few years we've been stateside on Thanksgiving but celebrate it the following day to give my sister and her family time to travel to us on Thanksgiving. This year, my sister and her family didn't travel here nor we there but we still celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday. One of my brothers couldn't come until Friday so we celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday.
We got a lot done around the house on Thursday. On Wednesday, our bathroom project was 100% completed! That meant that the dining room, the repository for all things pertaining to Donnie's portion of the renovation could be moved out of and placed elsewhere. Some of the items that had been stored in the dining room for two months included a water saw, bags of grout, work buckets, various levels, and lots of miscellaneous stuff. I thought I had a picture of the dining room turned temporary storage shop but I don't. I was thankful to get my pretty dining room back after its temporary storage space was complete. Donnie worked on clearing out the dining room of his work stuff on Thursday.
Meanwhile, I'd been stockpiling small, yet nonetheless unattractive, piles of paperwork that needed to be filed/ organized. I worked on that in several stages over the course of two days, Wednesday and Thursday. I probably keep more paperwork than I need to but I'd rather be safe than sorry (at least that's what I tell myself).
I tried to make our Thursday non celebratory Thanksgiving meal a little more special than normal. I made Italian beef for sandwiches (because we had not had it in a while), buffalo chicken dip (because Jacob loves it), cheesy potato casserole (because Alyssa loves it) and for dessert we had chocolate chip/ M & M cookies. Regarding the latter three items, I made plenty of those, knowing that we'd have leftovers for the next day when we'd have our real Thanksgiving meal.
On Friday, my brother John arrived from out of state as did my brother Joe, Kacia and his two girls, Carly and Mallory. Not a large gathering but a nice one, nonetheless, and I felt zero stress which is always a huge bonus :). I made a turkey, meatballs, mashed potatoes, wild rice w/ sweet potatoes, rolls, and then reheated the leftover potato casserole and buffalo chicken dip. I made caramel brownies which are decadent- anything with two sticks of butter and two packages of caramels (melted) had better be good to make it worth it all the fat/ calories and these brownies are! We bought two pumpkin pies and Joe brought a sugar cream and a pumpkin pie. John brought a three pound Hershey bar.
We have so much to be thankful for- family and food were the focus of the holiday; we have those items and many more to be thankful for. Thankful for a season to think about and appreciate all that we've been given.
The kids' table sported a fun tablecloth and touches of Thanksgiving...
...while the adults dined in the very Christmas themed dining room
… love these dishes even though they are very Christmasey
The kids had the caramel brownies
...and cookies so I think that made up for their Styrofoam/ plastic utensil experience
Girl cousins- Jacob went all adult on us and napped after we ate
Of course we got out the craft bins to make ornaments and be creative. No pictures of the final products but the girls made some cute things.
My lunch on Sunday- tis the season, right??
We got a lot done around the house on Thursday. On Wednesday, our bathroom project was 100% completed! That meant that the dining room, the repository for all things pertaining to Donnie's portion of the renovation could be moved out of and placed elsewhere. Some of the items that had been stored in the dining room for two months included a water saw, bags of grout, work buckets, various levels, and lots of miscellaneous stuff. I thought I had a picture of the dining room turned temporary storage shop but I don't. I was thankful to get my pretty dining room back after its temporary storage space was complete. Donnie worked on clearing out the dining room of his work stuff on Thursday.
Meanwhile, I'd been stockpiling small, yet nonetheless unattractive, piles of paperwork that needed to be filed/ organized. I worked on that in several stages over the course of two days, Wednesday and Thursday. I probably keep more paperwork than I need to but I'd rather be safe than sorry (at least that's what I tell myself).
I tried to make our Thursday non celebratory Thanksgiving meal a little more special than normal. I made Italian beef for sandwiches (because we had not had it in a while), buffalo chicken dip (because Jacob loves it), cheesy potato casserole (because Alyssa loves it) and for dessert we had chocolate chip/ M & M cookies. Regarding the latter three items, I made plenty of those, knowing that we'd have leftovers for the next day when we'd have our real Thanksgiving meal.
On Friday, my brother John arrived from out of state as did my brother Joe, Kacia and his two girls, Carly and Mallory. Not a large gathering but a nice one, nonetheless, and I felt zero stress which is always a huge bonus :). I made a turkey, meatballs, mashed potatoes, wild rice w/ sweet potatoes, rolls, and then reheated the leftover potato casserole and buffalo chicken dip. I made caramel brownies which are decadent- anything with two sticks of butter and two packages of caramels (melted) had better be good to make it worth it all the fat/ calories and these brownies are! We bought two pumpkin pies and Joe brought a sugar cream and a pumpkin pie. John brought a three pound Hershey bar.
We have so much to be thankful for- family and food were the focus of the holiday; we have those items and many more to be thankful for. Thankful for a season to think about and appreciate all that we've been given.
The kids' table sported a fun tablecloth and touches of Thanksgiving...
...while the adults dined in the very Christmas themed dining room
… love these dishes even though they are very Christmasey
The kids had the caramel brownies
...and cookies so I think that made up for their Styrofoam/ plastic utensil experience
Girl cousins- Jacob went all adult on us and napped after we ate
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