So Much to be Thankful for This Year

Although we don't have any family in our area, we always cook a traditional Thanksgiving meal.  Sometimes we've been able to invite a friend over who needed some company but usually it is just the four of us.  That's fine too...more leftovers for us!

The only thing I hate about our Thanksgiving meal is the FIVE cups of onions that have to be chopped for the dressing.  I use my Pampered Chef food chopper to make it go more quickly but there are still a lot of tears.

We have found a brined turkey recipe that we absolutely love.  It makes the most flavorful and moist turkey you will ever eat.  It is Alton Brown's Good Eats Roast Turkey recipe.  The bird soaks in a brine solution overnight.  We put it all in a brining bag to keep all of the mess contained then we put that down into an ice chest and cover it with ice.  It is all still ice cold in the morning when we take it out to cook.

While the food was cooking, we enjoyed some family time and Nicholas built a crazy tall tower of Keva blocks.  Fortunately the ladder to his loft bed helped him get high enough to keep building upward.

We had to get creative with the oven cooking.  We only have one oven but had to cook the turkey, dressing, sweet potato crunch, and green bean casserole - all to be ready at the same time!  Stuart has brought the dressing to work for their Thanksgiving potlucks and he says it cooks well in the crock pot for 4 hours so we got that started in the morning.  Fortunately the turkey needs to rest after cooking so we cooked it by itself in the oven.  As soon as it was done, we put the sweet potato crunch and green bean casserole in the oven. 

Amazingly it was all ready to eat at the same time!  Yes, we even used the fancy china. 

 Time to eat!

 Everyone cleaned their plate and some went back for seconds.

But we made sure to save room for the Chocolate Silk pie for dessert!

We talked a lot about all that we have to be thankful for this year.  It has been a rough year for us.  But we are thankful that Stuart wasn't injured in the wreck that totaled his beloved truck, my dad has recovered well from his 3 broken ribs and punctured lung, my in laws were rescued from their car as they floated down the street in the Louisiana flood, and my skin cancer has been removed and the biopsy shows that I'm cancer-free.  There are so many more things that we came up with to be thankful for.  As we would talk about one thing, another thing popped in someone's head.  It was a nice talk we had and a reminder of all that we have to be thankful for.

Last night, Stuart took the kids to the nursery department at Home Depot and they picked out the perfect tree.  We spent the evening decorating it with all of our sweet keepsake ornaments that the kids have made over the years.

Rachel has been super excited to get the tree decorated because once the tree is done and the kids have gone off to bed, Chimney, our Christmas elf, appears somewhere on the tree for the kids to find the next morning.

I can't wait to see her excitement when she finds him! 

What a blessed year it has been and it's not over yet!  For Christmas is the time to celebrate the most amazing blessing of all, Jesus Christ, and the love He has for us. 

It truly is the most wonderful time of the year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love this time of year because we reflect on all of the blessings we've received throughout the year and we realize just how much we have to be thankful for.  

I'm particularly thankful for my loving husband and my super sweet kids.  My family makes me smile every day and I love them so much!

My sweet kids helped in the kitchen as we prepared our Thanksgiving meal.  Rachel helped make the cornbread for the dressing.

Nicholas was excited to use the chopper on the onions but soon found that the odor was really strong so he devised a solution.

This boy just makes me laugh!

I found a simple way to spice up some plain yeast rolls.  Check out this recipe from Sandra Lee.  I actually didn't make the wreath.  Instead I bought frozen yeast dough that had already risen and only needed to bake for about 15 minutes from frozen.

I love having the big traditional Thanksgiving meal even if it is only the four of us sitting down to enjoy it.  It is so worth it!

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Gobble! Gobble!

Stuart and I always make a full Thanksgiving spread, even back when it was just the two of us. Now there are four and the 2 little ones don't really care what we eat. But we still stayed up way too late last night (or is that this morning?) preparing a full Thanksgiving meal.

We could have slept later this morning but with little kids in the house that is a foreign concept to us. We eventually got the bird in the oven and finished up some last minute details for our big dinner. While we were puttering around in the kitchen, the kids did a great job of playing together on their own.

Well, I thought so until I realized that Rachel had been standing on TOP of her play kitchen!

So to keep my wild little Indians entertained (and safe!), I printed off a turkey template from DLTK and put them to work writing down what they are thankful for.

I loved hearing about some of the things they were thankful for.

We cut out all of the pieces and put them together to make little turkeys of gratitude. Nicholas listed that he is thankful for music, a roof, trees, TV, God, food, a DS (Nintendo, that is), my family, and Legos.

Rachel is thankful for stop signs, chicken, my play kitchen, my family, my big brother, pink baby, animals, and turkey.

Speaking of turkey....it's done! We always use the Alton Brown Good Eats Roast Turkey recipe. It uses a brine so there is some prep the day before but it's easy and oh, so worth it!

We also had Stuart's family recipes for dressing and sweet potato crunch plus I tried a new recipe for a corn and bacon casserole. ummmm, bacon....

We even got out the charger plates, china, and crystal to do it up right.

We are thankful for our health and our families.

We are thankful for our home and our jobs which provide our home and put this delicious food on our table.

We are thankful for determination and willingness to try new things.

We are thankful for the laughter in our home.

We are so thankful for hugs from our children!

But we are most thankful for those that have gone before us, who followed their dreams and their destiny to fight for freedom and the making of this great nation.

Thanks Be To God!