Very Thankful This Thanksgiving

I simply have too many blessing to enumerate. So this is just a recap.

This was our first year hosting the big dinner. We had sixteen: my mom and dad, my grandma, Chris, Christine & Mikey, and Cara and her kids. Cara took my favorite photo of the day—check out the view in the goblet.

Although I love this photo too, my favorite grandma with my favorite Thanksgiving food, candied yams. They have to be her candied yams though.

We couldn't all fit around the table, but the boys didn't seem to mind.

The food was amazing, and could easily be the focus of this post. But the gathering of family is what really makes this day. And there is no way I'd ever go to this much effort to eat a meal in solitude.

Here's Ainsley, attacking the poor turkey carcass after the meal.

She clearly gets her carnivore instincts from her dad.

#97 on my list of things to be grateful for today is a fridge full of yummy leftovers.

We went to Davy and Emma's for pie—I made a Tollhouse Pie and Pioneer Woman's Apple Pie, and they were both worth the hours of working out it'll take to erase.

Here we are in our post-feast comas.

I love this holiday. I am blessed and am truly grateful.

Today's Notes

1. I'm thankful for Rob, who mowed and trimmed the yard one last time today.

2. Never go to Costco the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

3. These girls are posers. And they haven't given up on the Utes.

4. Also, we dissembled the bunk beds a couple of weeks ago, and they've been pretty good about making their beds. I love to see their elaborate arrangements of stuffed animals and blankets.

5. We are definitely in our "off season." Evidence here:

6. Mmmm, banana splits.

7. Notice how hair combing just doesn't happen when we don't have to go anywhere.

Recipes

So yesterday for dinner I served Chili, Spinach Parmesan soup and Vegetable Cheese soup. I had a few people request the recipes, and told them that the first two recipes were on my blog already (just click the links). I'm adding the Vegetable Cheese recipe, but the photo is a placeholder, since I forgot to take any photos when I made it. Hopefully I'll remember and switch this the next time I make it.

And my daily photo is very small, on this recipe, which we made for family home evening tonight.

I also added a section on the sidebar that you can click and get all the recipes I've posted.

So good...the first time around

We had our Riley family monthly birthday dinner tonight, and Emma made this fabulous sour cream chocolate cake. Although at about 10:15, when Ellie started coughing so hard that she gagged and threw up a huge piece, it was not quite as appealing. Just as I was thinking we were done being sick here...

A fond farewell

Tonight we went out to celebrate Joey's reflections win and to say goodbye to sugar for a while. We have definitely had too many treats over the past few weeks, and it's time to focus on healthy, nutrient dense foods. January is going to be the month of the vegetable.

And the winner is...

Melissa. Let me know what kind and when.

Rob is pretty bitter about not being allowed to win. I might just have to have a brownie party and invite all of you. Rob, you can lick the bowl.

Here's the Martha Stewart Ultimate Brownie recipe I promised. For a long time I could handle the richness, but now I usually cut back a bit on the chocolate and sugar.

Our baby...

...is really not a baby anymore. It's bittersweet. It's so nice to not be changing diapers or waking up at night (usually, anyway). She can buckle herself into her car seat and take a shower now. She is a chatterbox and constantly entertains us. Right now she's really into putting on "performances" for us—she'll inform us that the curtain is "going up" and then starts her ballet, interspersed with a few no-quite-complete cartwheels. It's easy to see why the three year-olds are called the Sunbeams in primary—she literally shines and brings light. It's hard to come up with anything I haven't liked about her at age three. So as she turns four, I guess the bitter part is just knowing that it's all going by too fast.

Since her birthday was on Saturday, we had a breakfast celebration, with the best pancakes I've ever tasted (thank you Martha Stewart!), followed by gifts, and after that no other celebrating was necessary—she and Ellie played with her new toys all day long. Actually, we did celebrate a little more, on Sunday, when I made her cake. Ellie had drawn a picture of a birthday cake, and Ainsley wanted that cake. I did my best, and I must say, my cake tasted better.
I used the Brownie Cake recipe, cream cheese frosting, marshmallow fondant, and of course, sprinkles.

Here's hoping that year four is even better than year three. We love you so much Ains!

Fruit Pizza

Last night was New Beginnings for the young women. We served this:

They're a little time consuming to make, but so pretty, and yummy too. Christianne came over to help cut fruit and assemble them, and we had a great time. Here's the recipe: