Thanksgiving, Gluten Free

Just made some cornbread dressing and green bean casserole, all gluten free! 

November 1

Ahhh....Breakfast the morning after Halloween....

  

Gorgeous color!

 

Harding Swing in the Autumn

Doing a Sudoku! 

only, instead of numbers, we used animals in jack o'lanterns

Began our tradition of Thankfulness...

Luci's first Thankful Leaf...it says, "I ♥ God."

And, for the first time in EVER I have gotten a BORING calendar.  No more pretty Mary Engelbreit drawings or Charles Wysocki artwork...Just too many things to do with our kids!  Had to get one with bigger date squares on it.

But...the day after the day after Halloween, we made it to the store and got candy and  costume items half-off!  We got 3,400 dum-dum lollipops for next year's Fall Festival at our church,

and....

Luci says, I'm a Cow Girl!  But that does not mean I ride a COW!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's a warm day here--the weather feels weird.  It will be cooler tomorrow, and then it will feel more like it's supposed to.

Turkey is in the oven, fruit salad made, the other sides are next on the list.  We may put a leaf in the table just to hold the extra food.  ☺  

It would be so nice to see everyone today, but it's just so rush-rush and later on we can visit for an extended time.  John and Bryan leave on their mission trip tomorrow, so it's nice to be home today.  Especially since Bryan hadn't packed anything until I forced him to bring me X-number of underpants, shirts, socks, shorts and pants a few moments ago.  I can't imagine saving that for the last minute tomorrow (today is last-minute enough for me!). 

Luci is having a blast watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Just when I thought she'd find it boring because it's bands and floats and not a fast-paced Disney or Sprout show. 

It is so nice having John home this year.  We've had so many birthdays and holidays missed and messed up by his trips that most "special" days seem like just normal days to the boys and me.  It's hard to get excited over a date on the calendar (Luci is still pretty excited over December 25th, though).  The boys don't care as long as on some day they get presents.  But December 25th?  Thanksgiving?  They are just dates on the calendar.  The product of being military kids during multiple deployments, I guess.

Here is our tree full of Thanks-giving from the whole month!

Thankfulness

We started this "Thankful Tree" tradition back in 1998.  Here is our 2007 tree, which tells more of the story.  Every day each person who is in our home at supper time writes something he or she is thankful for on a paper leaf and we stick it on this "tree."  You have to think of something new every evening. This year Luci is old enough to understand, so she will have to think of new things each day. Since we have trouble getting her to be quiet, I'm sure she will be able to fill up 25 or so leaves (until Thanksgiving, then we get out the Christmas stuff!!).

What I found really special about tonight is that Luci wanted to write her own "thankful" bit!  She had a 15-word piece she wanted me to spell out letter-by-letter, which boiled down to she's thankful for the seasons God has made.  So we shortened it to "Seasons."   Then she drew a "fancy line" and signed her name.  (I wrote the date.)  I think I am going to be saving lots of leaves this year!

I had to include this photo, too.  Luci wanted to pose "all silly."

Martha Stewart Quiz for Thanksgiving

You are undoubtedly
Roasted Root Vegetables

Take Martha Stewart's Quiz and see which Thanksgiving side dish you are. I am definitely NOT Roasted Root Vegetables. I bet she doesn't even have green bean casserole in her choice list! (Add 1/3 cup sliced almonds to that green bean casserole to make it the right way, according to John.)

Hey, Feingold friends: Did you know that French's French Fried Onions are now cleared for use on stage 1?

Thirty Days of Thanks...

I am thankful for traditions, this one in particular. Every day in November, each person here (even visitors) writes down something he is thankful for and dates and signs the leaf. Every day is something different--you can't say the same thing twice (and for the boys, they can only list one video game all month). Then it's added to our tree. The tree is on our pantry door, affixed with velcro on the inside of the door. We use sticky-tak stuff to stick the leaves on, so we can remove them, save our favorites, and use the tree again next year. This tree has about 40 leaves on it. Imagine how crowded with blessings it will be by Thanksgiving!

Wonderful Thanksgiving!

We spent the day in Jemison, where John's folks live. Cindy and Frankie invited us to spend the day with them. Cindy, Jeanne and Ona (Cindy's mom) cooked a fabulous feast. I brought some things for JT that were without corn syrup, and there was just too much for everyone to possibly eat in one week. John's brother David was also there. It was a fun day, and could nearly be counted as a field trip since the kids got some lessons in Civil War history and reenactments from Uncle Frankie, and we got to visit all the animals (chickens, goats, horses and llamas!).

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Some favorite photos:

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Gran-Je and Luci

John with his Dad
Bryan, JT and Luci showing some love

They really did get along all day!

They are just showing off for the camera.

John, David and Luci



The Whole Day

What We Are Doing Today

Honoring our heroes. . .John's getting a pecan pie from me, the boys are playing Army in the backyard, and Luci's being Luci, playing dolls with Daddy. Luci's way of playing with her dollhouse depends upon with whom she is playing--Mommy or Daddy. With Mommy, she plays the whole Cinderella story, and we must try the slipper on every female doll within sight. When Luci plays with Daddy, the dolls climb onto the roof and try to catch the baby before she falls off. The differences in her playing styles had me laughing!Today we are adding to our Thankful Tree. It's a tradition every year. Luci is really enjoying doing this. She tells me every day something that makes her happy, and she signs her name. The boys were not signing their names at age 4, so that is another thing I am thankful for. We save the leaves every year.

And, we are enjoying our Christmas tree. The kids put it up last night. We were going to wait until after Thanksgiving, after John's trip started. John said the month was too busy already to have an early Christmas. But the kids really want Christmas with Daddy (or maybe they just want the presents), so the tree's up.

The rest of the decorations can wait until December. Diane (mom to Bradley and Rachel, and friend to me) has volunteered to babysit for John and me so we can go Christmas shopping the Saturday before Thanksgiving. We may make that a real date for us, too. It'll be a special day, certainly.