Thanksgiving Menu

We're celebrating our first Thanksgiving in our new home in style!  We cooked up a feast this morning.  Sarah helped.  My kitchen is big enough to hold three active cooks.  I still find it hard to believe that we actually live here, and will, probably forever, and that we are blessed with such a lovely space, inside and out.

After all the cooking and baking, we were invited next door to visit, share a drink, and play croquet.  Sarah came in second!  Our amazing neighbors are another unexpected blessing living here.

We had an early meal at home, just our family, but there was enough food for 30.  I'll try to remedy that next year and fill our home with friends and family.

From left to right there is pumpkin pie, pickles, maple pineapple ham, venison, cranberry sauce, pineapple, baked beans, my Grandma's four bean salad, pickled beets, maple drizzled brussel sprouts, and baked sweet potatoes.

We'll close our day at a friend's home 'round the fire.  The bacon wrapped dates are long gone, but hopefully our bean salad, brussel sprouts, pie, spiced cider and wine will suffice.

Dress-up Day

I think this is what we should call Halloween 'round here. That is what it is all about for us - dressing up. Not that my children mind walking door to door and having candy fill their buckets and bags, but they love to dress up. Without further adieu, I present:

the cutest pumpkin ever!

a pink cowgirl with a pink horse

the knight who was a cowboy earlier in the day

a beautiful butterfly

stopping for sugar on the way home

crossing the bridge

We ate dinner after collecting buckets of loot that were so heavy they couldn't carry them home. I pushed it back in the stroller. Everyone agreed to get some good food in their tummies before diving into the pools of sweetness. We don't set any limits. A few times a year they can have all the sugar they want. Also, there is no chocolate in this house. We're all allergic to it. The kids sell their chocolate to us, and Jesse hands it out to his college students. The going rate is 5 cents a piece. They each made around $3.00 this year, but I gave them $5 since that's what I had. Everyone ran to put their bills in their banks, so I guess it's being saved this year.

Speaking of savings, I spent not one penny on costumes this year. Anna wore a sweat-suit I bought Leah four years ago. Leah wore the pink cowgirl hat I bought for her dance recital last year - $3 thrift store. I know the horse was a Goodwill find as well, but that was more than six years ago. David was going to be this knight last year. The sword in sheath (that is barely visible) was his treat from Busch Gardens two summers ago. Helmet - 75 cents. Breastplate - 99 cents. Sarah was going to wear butterfly wings I found at a garage sale for $1. Those were not working in the morning, so ones that we received as a Leah birthday gift last year made a fine substitute. Jesse wore a kimono his mother gave us years ago and a hat he got while in China. I wore his cowboy hat and my suede, lace-up, skinny boots. What a fun Dress-up Day!

rain

Rain, rain, go away,
So Fall can come again and stay,
And when my children go out to play,
There are not wet leaves on the floor all day.


Oh, I live in southern Virginia, near the shore. This is Fall.
But for days on end?
I miss the sunshine.

Hunt Club Farm

Man! do I LOVE these guys!

Harvest Moon

I took this earlier in the evening. The moon rose so fast, it was hard to capture. Of course my camera and skills did it no justice. This moon felt majestic and magnetic. Numerous people were out on the bridge, just quietly observing, marveling at the beauty.

randomness

No baby pictures yet. Check back on Sunday for those. =) I planned our ultrasound a bit early (19 wks, rather than 20) so I can share with my sister whether she will have another niece or nephew. She has a visiting weekend in two days. Living in a convent, communication is not always ideal, but she has the opportunity to call me on Saturday. I really want her to be the first to know, since everything else she hears is second-hand. randomness

My favorite parts were seeing a tiny, perfect face, little hand waving, long legs and having the head measure exactly 19wks 1 day, which is where we are today.

Other sights to share...

Rainbow blocks arrived last week! Can you tell? My favorite play moment so far was David swirling them on the floor. They were a tornado. As the storm lessened, they created a rainbow. He carried them over to their shelf when it was complete and said, "Hey, it's fun to play before picking up."

Water filter arrived too, but I will not bore you with views of a tall stainless steel canister. ;) I will say that it is sooo worth it, especially if you lived on a farm, got spoiled to the taste of spring water and after moving spent the next three years buying and drinking water out of plastic.

After Sarah read a sign for a pet store today, Leah asked, "Do you know where you can buy 100 cats?" "Where?" "The cat market!" Here's Leah from the summer with a beloved kitty.

Leah also informed me today, "Did you know that mommies' tummies are spheres?" Maybe she understood more about David's sphere and cube lesson than I thought...

I'm not sure why, but my thoughts keep turning to my grandfather lately. I have some flowers from his funeral on my front steps. They stay there all year, except when we go away in December. They've bloomed for the last 18 months. With Autumn, I added some wheat too. I love to see this as I enter our home.

Crisp Memories

ooo! I love this weather! For me, this is the first day of fall. The air is crisp and cool. Thoughts of bonfires, my hoodie IUP sweatshirt, apple cider and the color orange all come to mind. I'm going to wear orange tomorrow in honor of the weather. =) A bit of sunshine would have been nice, but I still delighted in the day, even the light rain that started on my morning walk.

There may be a few more days in the 80s here, but it is nice to have my windows open, and have to SHUT them at night. I'm chilled and thrilled. :) Sunday was HOT however! With a heat index of 102, I stopped counting the hours of AC use. On Saturday morning, we were at 12. By Sunday am it was 21. At least one of the units was on all day and the ceiling fans were doing their duty too, so I gave up. I think I made it through the summer with under 36 hours of AC use! This was accomplished with a relatively cool Aug, two weeks of vacation in both June and July and living in a small, one story house that is fairly well shaded, across the street from the inlet of a river that provides breezes. I'm hoping it all added up to some savings. I'll post our comparative kw hours once I get them gathered.

So here's the memory part of my thoughts tonight. I'm pining for Paris. We went last October, and I just want to run off there now. I'd take a few girlfriends, (or maybe dhubbie again ;) lounge in the parks, stroll through the streets, get lost in the museums and dash for the RER. So, if it was 20 degrees colder, I'd dig out the scarf I knit for France and go sit on the river wall in Ghent. Hearing this song: I Will Follow You Into The Dark Artist: Death Cab doesn't help. We first heard it at the wedding we attended in Pont-de-Pany. Now it brings back everything - smells, tastes, sights, sounds. *sigh*

Here are some bits 'n' pieces of the sights for you:






Happy, delicious memory making to you and yours!