Thanksgiving Festivities 2013
Thursday, November 28th, 2013Thanksgiving Festivities 2013
We have so much to be thankful for this year, and we definitely celebrated a lot =)
First, we had our second shoebox packing party since the kids were old enough to help. Our friends the Richards and the Hoppers from OKC came down, and the kids had a blast sorting the goodies and filling up the boxes. And then we relied on Scott’s engineering skills to make it all fit =) I made an ice cream sandwich bar with Snickerdoodles, Oatmeal Cookies, Mocha Chocolate Cookies and Chocolate Chip cookies. With five kinds of ice cream and tons of toppings, this was tons of fun
Then we had the Thanksgiving Banquet at Serenity’s school. I made chocolate sheet cake. I wanted something I’d made a lot since I came uncomfortably close to putting curry powder in my cookies instead of cocoa powder. =) The banquet was great fun, as always. We got to sit down and chat with our Uschool friends, and this year the kids put on a little show for us with poems and a song! And someone brought samosas, which made my day =) Serenity was very proud of the class turkey. Hers is the one with the most purple =) And she made her dots into stripes.
I really love cooking Thanksgiving food, even though there’s no law that says I can only make a turkey once a year, that’s about as often as I manage it. I cooked Sunday for my family, Dad, Mom and Brandon. I made my normal menu, turkey cooked with orange slices and apricot jam, orange rolls, a savory sweet potato dish and green bean casserole. We also had a chocolate pie and oatmeal apple crisp. (with some excellent leftover ice cream, salted caramel!) Donovan had to be coerced into eating one bite of the very large “chicken” before he could have more orange rolls. But I didn’t really worry with policing food at Thanksgiving meals. I do that every other meal =)
Our last Thanksgiving was a wonderful meal with Mike and Kelly’s family. I’m so glad they invited us, it just seems wrong to just have one family on Thanksgiving! Plus, they are spectacular cooks! Garlic was highly featured, which is my favorite =) Garlic green beans and mashed potatoes. Yummy turkey Mike grilled, with really good turkey gravy. I don’t usually eat turkey gravy but this was incredible. The kids had a wonderful day playing with their cousins. =) They tried out all their toys, and then they went outside and discovered the trampoline! They bounced until they were completely
exhausted and then food was ready =) Serenity unfortunately started running a fever around the time dinner was on the table, so she just snuggled into Daddy’s lap and ate a roll. Donovan fell asleep in the car on the way home and slept till his normal bedtime. Going to be an interesting night =) Eric got to play one game of Dominion, which Carson and Raegan are getting really good at! I got to take a nap with the feverish girl, which actually felt really good =) I made a couple of different gluten free pies and some snickerdoodle fudge, which worked out ok. I have a couple of recipe tweaks in mind for next time. =)