It's a cold, rainy day here in Ohio right before Thanksgiving, a perfect day to cuddle up with hot tea and read some chapters in the book I started, oh, a month and a half ago! The kids and I spent part of our morning reading The Thanksgiving Story and making thankfulness collages. The family room floor was a mass of old magazines, scissors, and discarded pages. We listened to a Crossing CD and shared ideas and pages with each other. As I suspected, Charis REALLY got into the activity, the boys tolerated it, and Kenna went off on her own little tangent. A look at her collage shows that she is very, very, VERY thankful for dolls! And Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar--but we'll call that "parents," LOL! I suppose I should take pictures of the finished products and post them...I'll have to do that when I'm not feeling so lazy!
I guess I haven't blogged about my birthday yet, but I did post the news on Facebook. Last Saturday, after a very disappointing craft fair, Charis and I came home "in the hole," having paid $20 for a table and selling only about $11 worth of product. I'll give Charis the cash, since all the crafts were hers, and the $20 table fee can be a write-off for me, I guess! I did tentatively book a workshop with a new customer/hostess, so hopefully that will go well and make the whole investment worthwhile after all. Anyway, when we arrived home, Ted covered my eyes before I could walk into the kitchen, and the kids all shouted "Happy Birthday!" when I saw my present on the table--a new Kitchen Aid mixer! Ted's mom and his brother and wife contributed as well. I was VERY surprised and super excited! Ted had also made dinner (homemade chili) and my birthday cake (zucchini bars), and we enjoyed a nice evening as a family watching Toy Story 3 on DVD. It was a wonderful way to unwind after an extremely busy week.
Before the kids all woke up this morning, I put my new Kitchen Aid mixer to work making a pumpkin bee sting pie and a chocolate pecan pie. YUM! Yesterday we used it to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. So we know it works! Charis used it this afternoon to make our sweet potato casserole, and Ted used it shortly after that to make the make-ahead mashed potatoes. (Yes, he even got in on the action! He SAID he would take care of the potatoes so I could put my feet up and read a bit, but I suspect he really just wanted to play with our new toy, LOL!)
So we have our pies, potatoes, and sweet potatoes ready to go for tomorrow. We've peeled and chopped carrots for our veggie, garlic carrots, which is a vegetable everyone will eat (unlike the green bean casserole which only Ted and I will eat). So all that remains for tomorrow is actually preparing the stuffing, roasting the turkey, and throwing the carrots and garlic in the skillet 15 minutes before we sit down to eat. Of course the potatoes and sweet potatoes will bake during that time. Oh, yes, and I guess we'll have to make the gravy, too! Can't have Thanksgiving dinner without the gravy!
This year we're just going to enjoy our own little family for Thanksgiving. My parents are coming out for a few days next week, and Rhonda gets to visit us for Christmas. Ted is in charge at work, as his boss is on leave this week and next, so we had to stick around this year. Last year we went to Wisconsin, and frankly, while it was a good time of visiting the fam there, I am SO thankful that we do NOT have to pack up and go anywhere! November has been way too crazy for us to be traveling anywhere else!
I was trying to volunteer our family to help at the senior center for their Thanksgiving dinner, but by the time I actually talked to a real person (who called me back just today), the center had been inundated with volunteers, which is good for them but left me feeling disappointed that we didn't find a way to serve others in our community. It's a perfect year to do it, since we aren't hosting anyone else. Oh, well...we'll pray for others as a means of blessing them, I guess!
We have NOTHING planned for this weekend, and that's on purpose! Well, we are having a Settlers of Catan game gathering with our neighbor friends on Saturday sometime, but that's low-key and long overdue! Other than that, I hope to finish the book I'm reading, maybe do a little scrapbooking, and prepare for my December workshops. (I have the projects planned, just need to prep materials for the guests.) I expect our family will play lots of games and continue reading our current books out loud (book #4 in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series and Sign of the Beaver).
So that's what's going on around here...maybe I can catch up on reading my friends' blogs this weekend, too!
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