Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

Happy Turkey Day!!

No, not that Turkey...this Turkey!!

Tomorrow we are on our way home. WooHoo!!! We haven't been home since Christmas of last year so we are anxious to get back and spend time with family. While it won't be exactly what we are used to, it will definately be a blend of what the days to come are going to look like.

With our first child on the way, we are going to have to rethink how we do holidays. I just don't think I will survive caring for an infant in the car for that long next year, Thanksgiving and then 3 weeks later, Christmas.

It takes about 12 or 13 hours to get home and so my husband is going to have alot of fun riding with an 80 pound dog and his wife who is 6 and a half months pregnant, ...this should be interesting!! I think Maggie will do better than me. Swollen feet, achy back and a full bladder....Ugh! This is going to be a long trip!!

Staying at Home??

Since I am now 13 weeks away from giving birth, ideally, (can you hear the panic in my voice?), I figured I would start researching my childcare options. Our first plan was to ask if I could bring the baby to work for a while. That got NIXXED pretty darn fast. Next was putting her into care here at the university where I work so she would be close by. Unfortunately, they don't accept infants. Then, I started asking around for someone to keep her in my house. But when I actually looked at the cost of having someone keep her, it wasn't even worth it.

So I talked to E the other night and laid out my options for him:

A) paying someone to keep the baby so that I could work through the summer and then quit in August (3 extra pay checks)
B) finally get a chance to use the short-term disability benefits through work (5 extra pay checks at 60%) and then quit afterwards

Work has been pulling money out of my check for a year and a half now in case I ever want to use my short term disability so why not take advantage of it? I don't know if he just really didn't care or was preoccupied by the magazine he was reading when I brought up the subject, the response was frightening.

Me: So what do you think?
E: I think you should just stay home!

Wow, I didn't even have to fight or discuss any of this. I had all of my points ready to make my case. Maybe he knew how stressed this was starting to make me or maybe that's really what he thought but his "matter-o-fact" answer caught me off guard.

All that to say...I am staying home ladies and gents!!

The Great Wall

We have had the floor tiles in our house for over a year with a purpose in mind. We have big plans for our laundry room/den/my office. These floor tiles were involved in the grand scheme of things and now that we finally have free time, we got around to putting up the tiles this weekend. It really didn't take that long but we were both really surprised at how much we like it once it got on the wall. On the left hand side, E is going to build me a shelf for storage baskets and then a built-in storage bench to go across the rest of the space. There will also be a hook for coats and other accessories. Now that I can finally see the difference, I am getting excited.

Brushing Maggie's Teeth

E decided Saturday morning that he was would brush Maggie's teeth. Normally we would let the vet or the groomers deal with that but not that day. He is a picture of the struggle. Maggie's wanted to eat the brush and chew on E's fingers...just a little bit...and E wanted to go ahead and get his done.

It wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't sent me to get his own personal toothbrush for the task!! Luckily, he had just gotten back from the dentist and had received a new one.

Thanksgiving Social

This weekend was our annual Thanksgiving social which includes a meal, dessert, wonderful fellowship and of course, what would a Thanksgiving social be without a game of Thanksgiving themed pictionary. Very strange the games these people play but I am always up for a good time. Here are a few pictures from the event...sorry, there were so many.

I thought I would start off with this picture and the story that goes with it. I went home early from work on Friday to get the food cooked that I was supposed to bring. I made a sweet potato souflee' and 2 casserole dishes of apple dumplings (E's favorite). With an hour left before the party started and all three dishes needing to be cooked for about an hour, I opted to cook the souflee' and the biggest dish of apple dumplings. I figured that I would bring the extra dish of apple dumplings to the party and see if there was room in the oven to cook them during dinner. Once we got there, there wasn't room in the oven so I resigned to the fact that one large dish would have to suffice. I was eating dinner inside when Elizabeth came and whispered in my ear:

Elizabeth: Are those dumplings cooked all of the way?
Me: Yeah, why?
Elizabeth: Well, everyone on the porch is eating them and they don't taste like the last ones you made.

I looked into the kitchen and saw the dish they had been eating from was the dish of raw apple dumplings. But that's not the funny part. The funny part was that they were eating them and going back for seconds and ended up eating almost the WHOLE DISH of the RAW dumplings. I look on the porch where half of our group was eating and Renee' (who is also pregnant and due 3 weeks before me) is just sawing through the raw apples with her plastic knife. Here's what was left in the raw dish. I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. Seriously, they were going back for seconds on the raw dumplings!!!

Good food!!!

Dave and Russell carving the turkey and the ham.

Erika decorated the porch SO BEAUTIFULLY!! I am super jealous of her front porch.

Everyone finally digging in to the food.

Everyone eating on the front porch.

The infamous game of pictionary...I started us out by drawing "giblet gravy." Just a small note, pictionary between the men and women gets VERY competitive as you will see in the next few pictures.

Dave looking up "turkey wattle" on his iphone to make sure he is submitting the right word. Lucky me, I picked that one.

Lindy was upset that he had picked Sam's entry "Uncle Benny's Hangover."
Erika relaxing on the front porch after cleaning house and cooking all day.
Me, Kristy and Matt focused intently on the board.
With all of the pregnant women in our class, let me rephrase that...With half of the women in our class being pregnant, this drawing in particular got us all a little scared before she drew the eyes. I was seriously starting to reconsider everything post childbirth.

But once she drew the eyes, we all immediately knew what she was drawing...Russell's snake vest.
And Matt couldn't resist...he had to try on the snake vest and bust a move!!

Hashbrown Casserole...OH MY!!!

Hash Brown Casserole...I first saw this on Paula Deen's website and decided to try it. But now...it's nothing like hers. The first time I made this,...ehh...I wasn't so impressed. Yeah, it was good enough to eat for breakfast but I didn't think I would ever make it again. The hashbrown crust was mushy, I didn't like the diced ham, there wasn't enough flavor...and the list goes on. This weekend, I had an epiphany. "I should add sausage and more veggies and make the hash brown crust CRISPY!!!" So Saturday night, I did just that. I thawed out the hashbrowns and cooked them much more than I was supposed to in a 9x13 dish instead of an pie plate. I chopped and seeded 2 tomatoes and 1 onion. I also went ahead and cooked a pound of sausage instead of adding diced ham and WOW! What a difference. I got lots of yummy sounds when I brought this to church Sunday morning. And everything was make ahead too so all I had to do when I got up was add eggs to the chopped veggies and the sausage I had chopped and cooked the night before and pour it over the crust. SO EASY!!

Try this! You will love it!!

(I forgot the pictures this morning...so I will post them later on when I get a hold of them!!)

E Revelations

Lately, I am noticing that everytime I turn around, E is building a backyard fire in the firepit. It doesn't matter that it's 85 degrees outside, evidently we are in desperate need for a fire every night of the week. This weekend was no different. After starting a fire on Friday and Saturday night, E came home from church on Sunday around lunch and immediately started throwing logs onto the fire. I will never understand men and the attraction to burn things!! We sat around the fire and reminisced about where we were 5 years ago and if we every thought we would be discussing house renovations around fire, in Texas, with a dog, and a baby on the way. Our life has completely turned out much different than I, personally, expected 5 years ago when we got engaged. In a good way though.




Other new things about E I am noticing is his need for a project. I honestly think that's why he got his master's degree. And once the program ended, he walked around the house for the first few days trying to find something to do. But, no worries, I have enough projects around the house that he is getting excited about and they will keep him quite busy for a few months. Hopefully, the renovation funds will keep up with him. And I think I overheard him talking with our Sunday School teacher about substitute teaching our class. I don't know if I will ever get him all figured out.

Hmmmm...Christmas Cookies???

I saw these advertised as Christmas cookies this morning and was a little confused ... but maybe it's just me!! However, I did like the tag line..."Now everyone can have a bun in the oven!" Fetus Cookies? I think I should definately take these to my Sunday School Christmas Social. Or maybe I will just forego the cookies all together.