Giving Thanks

My sister and her family came to visit us for Thanksgiving! It was a lot of fun. They brought delicious rolls, and three pies, cherry, key lime, and apple, which we were all excited about! I made a pumpkin and chocolate pie, and this year I tried roasting and pureeing a sugar pumpkin for the pumpkin pie.  I don't know if it was being fresh or using a deep dish, but the darn thing cooked for like 2 hours before it was set, and the crust was pretty roasted, which was rather frustrating. Tips? It tasted maybe less pumpkiny, but fresher, if that makes any sense.
 I was so glad the Beans were happy to start a tradition I've wanted to do for a couple years, a Pie Preview! So Wednesday night we all had pie :) The pies are usually freshly made Wednesday, and we're all so stuffed thursday we probably don't appreciate pie enough, so I love enjoying a little (or in our case three slices or so) preview of pie. I should have taken more photos, but we played a game of Settlers that night, which was a lot of fun. Probably partly because I won, which doesn't often happen :)

Thanksgiving day we watched the Macy's Day Parade, and Juliana and I cooked while the dads played with kids and hung out. Juliana avoided any photos though. See Nan, I  needed photos for memories!

 It was a fairly simple but yummy meal, and it was so nice to have her help. James went down for a nap, and we ate, (sorry bud!) The kids actually ate a few things; rolls, jello, mashed potatoes, and turkey, which was a feast for them and something to be grateful of for me. They usually scorn my homemade jello, but I finally got it right this time, woohoo. And Juliana graciously made sure there was no potato peel for Reese, who has a shark's sense for any texture or color variation in mashed potatoes.

In the afternoon we played Dominion, and it was a close one! We were all within 6 points of each other. We watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and The Mayflower Voyagers, which I love to do. I love how poignant it is that in the midst of a civil war is when our nation adopted a holiday to remember God's blessings, and give thanks in all things.  Gratitude leads to so many other virtues and engenders so  much peace and happiness, I love we have a holiday for it. And it's even better when we get to celebrate with people who we are grateful for :)

That night all of us but James and Bree played Apples to Apples, which was so fun to play all together. Except Grace didn't get very good cards, and is still getting the hang of playing to people, so she felt kinda bad about getting skunked.
Friday highlights included RD taking the kids (except Bree and James) ice skating, which they all loved, and the rest of us had some quiet at home.  It was supposed to be Grace's date, since she had been begging to go ice skating for her date for weeks and weeks, but she was happy to have the boys come along. I was kinda sad I missed taking pics, cause RD said they all had a blast and were laughing and smiling so much, even Reese. Cameron apparently just took off, and Reese told me how it was frustrating to be going slow while Cameron was skating circles around him and spin around (three in a row once!).  Grace fell down a lot at first, but she kept getting up and got going pretty quick. It was probably good for Reese to see his younger sibs doing better than him at something (because of course he came home and compared them to him when he told me how it went)
And the dessert of  some imported French cheese with sparkling cider and pomegranates was perfect. We even pulled out the goblets actually made of glass (instead of the usual unbreakable cups), which made me feel much more sophisticated and grownup, haha.

Saturday the Beans had to leave, but we at least got in some homemade cocoa and toast. Thanks for coming to visit us!