November 25, 2010

A New Thanksgiving

I was really looking forward to a relaxing Thanksgiving this year. The theme this year was to simplify everything. This morning Mike took the boys to the football scrimmage and while he played with the guys the boys ran around and played with some of their friends that were there. This was the first year Mike took the boys and I am thinking this will have to be a tradition. ALL the boys will go and play football or whatever in the morning. The girls and I stayed behind to shower and get ready for the day. I started on some of our Thanksgiving dinner and talked with family on the computer. Then it was off to the kitchen to figure out the timing of everything. Our very small oven meant no turkey this year. What...no turkey on Thanksgiving? It must be sacrilegious to not eat turkey on Thanksgiving. I mean what is Thanksgiving without the beautiful glazed turkey? There was no way I was going to try and stuff that big bird in our teeny tiny oven so we had to be creative this year. Mike recently bought a rotisserie attachment for our grill so our bird of choice had to be chicken! We marinated and stuck two small chickens on the rotisserie and I must say that they were quite tasty. Dare I say they were even tastier than turkey? Yes, they were better than turkey. I think we have found a new tradition for Thanksgiving.

Our Thanksgiving Menu:

Rotisserie Chicken
Rhoades Rolls (too lazy to make my homemade rolls)
Candied Sweet Potatoe Casserole with Toasted Marshmallow Topping
Mashed Potatoes
Deviled Eggs
Stuffing (yep, it was from the box)
Sparkling Apple Cider
Pumpkin Pie

I think we all agreed it was the tastiest Thanksgiving meal we have ever had. I guess there is something to be said about keeping it simple. The sweet potatoes came from the can and then I added a few more things. The stuffing came from the box. I didn't even make my own rolls this year and used the Rhoades rolls instead. They were fine but I actually missed my homemade rolls. I will be making those for Christmas dinner. Everything else had to be made from scratch and that was find by me.

New traditions this year:

-we played Christmas music all day while we were cooking and playing
-the boys played football in the morning
-we made a rotisserie chicken instead of turkey
-we put up the Christmas tree and will decorate it after Thanksgiving
-we read everything from our Thankful Jar
-we waited to clean up dinner and watched a Christmas movie instead. This year it was "The Grinch"

A tradition for next year:

-family game of football in the park after Thanksgiving dinner. It was too dark this year because we ate too late but next year we will eat earlier so we can have some good family fun.

We are grateful for (from our thankful jar):

-flowers
-to live in Japan
-a husband who is fun and funny
-that daddy teaches piano lessons
-to live in a house
-God
-my room
-the chance to be on this earth
-happy and healthy kids
-our health
-friends
-a husband likes a clean house
-church
-my brother
-Andrew's thoughtfulness and caring
-children who are eager to help out around the house
-home
-a good job
-an awesome family
-a daddy who takes the train so we can use the car
-food to eat
-Abby and her cuteness when she says, "I woke up mommy."
-family
-Emma's kisses
-no poopy diapers
-Andrew's smile
-candy
-cool kids
-Peter's laugh
-the heater
-apples
-mom and dad
-a mom who flew out here to visit
-my wife
-my family, my granparents, my aunts, uncles and cousins
-healthy family
-the gospel

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