Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving went perfectly. All the food turned out really good and everyone enjoyed themselves.

I'll let the pictures do the talking.

The night before prep work:

The schedule

From left to right: Green beans casserole, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, apple pie.
Ingredients set up in order of when things were going to get done. (dork!)

Tyler making his banana cream pie

Turkey seasoning (not complete). There's only sage and garlic in here. The total seasoning also had olive oil, butter, lemon juice, paprika, cumin, grill seasoning, salt.

I separate the skin from the breast and stuff seasoning in between. Tyler thought it was the coolest thing ever!

All seasoned up!

Dangling bacon and hungry doggies. LOL

Ready to go. Yes.. I put toothpicks to hold the little wings close to the body.

Turkey in the bag ready to go in the fridge and to be baked the following morning!

Some cooking on Thanksgiving day:

Finishing off the pie

Getting the juices for the gravy

Turkey all done!

The food:

Squash, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots. These are still frozen. I steamed them.

Cream cheese corn. (Still frozen too). I microwaved these. They were sooo yummy.

Stuffing!

Mashed Potatoes (made by Tyler)

Bread!

The desserts:

Banana Cream Pie (made by Tyler)

Pumpkin pie

Apple Pie

The Table:

Centerpiece

Place settings

All the food on the table

Stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, veggies

Green beans, sweet potatoes, turkey, gravy

The elders getting ready to eat

Me, Carly, Kevin, Ethan on his high chair, elders back

After dinner and dessert we played Catch Phrase with the elders and our friends. We ended the evening with a clean kitchen and dishes all done and lots of leftovers!
It was a lovely evening!

To our family and friends

Tomorrow? Really?

I am sitting here and thinking of all the things I need to be doing to prep for tomorrow hurah and can't seem to be able to move my butt off the comfy couch. It doesn't help that it's cold (joy in my life), I have the electric blanket on top of me on medium high, and there are two seriously cute doggies cuddling with me.

Is tomorrow really thanksgiving?? Seriously?? I guess I better go give my turkey some loving, make my pies and pie dough for the apple one, and clean the house which includes washing the carpet where one of darling doggies had a pee accident and the other one had a puke accident. I can't wait until we get wood floors. Seriously.

But I'm grateful. I know tomorrow I'll be all giddy because the missionaries will be coming over and we even get the special happiness of having elders! We were going to have sisters but they had transfers yesterday and it is now elders in our ward. Elders eat much more than sisters do. I'll also be giddy because our besties are coming over, Carly and Kevin and little boy Ethan. This is our third Thanksgiving with them. If only Sam and Emily lived in Texas and were familyless like us. Vernice and Matt had their baby two days ago, little Nathan. I'm super excited for them and can't wait to meet the little guy. They'd be coming over too, but Matt's parents are in Texas and they have to go over there. Darn it! But I'm still excited... I love cooking for people and even though tomorrow and today will be busy I'll be gleaming with pride when everyone is telling me how good everything was. lol I love our friends we've made in Texas, and love where our life is headed, grateful school is almost over, grateful Tyler has a wonderful stable job, grateful for our non-shedding little doggies even if they pee and puke on my carpet, grateful for our families and life really. Life is pretty dang good right now.

BYU v. Utah Game Party!

On Saturday Tyler and I had a few people over for the BYU/U of U game. I was super excited, and got slightly carried away with the amount of food I made.

For snacks and appetizers we had:

- Chicken Cigars
- Pao de Queijo (Brazilian Cheese rolls)
- Peanuts, Cashews, Roasted Almonds
- Veggie tray and dip
- Olives
- Homemade salsa and chips

For dinner (at halftime) we had:

- Burgers (bacon, cheese, or plain)
- Hot dogs
- Chips (Cheetos, potato, doritos nacho cheese)
- Fixings (pickles, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, condiments)
- Drinks (Coke, Fanta Orange, Root Beer, Sprite, Water)

For dessert we had:
- 5 Minute in heaven chocolate chip cake
- Dove chocolates

Here's the table picture

Tyler cooking us up some burgers!

Part of the crew

We had Carly, Kevin, Ethan, and Pattie; Matt and Vernice and cute fetus Nathan; and a new couple we had never met Julia and John. So clearly I made way too much food. I just love to entertain people and couldn't control myself. Everyone ate and had fun. They all left after the game which bummed me out greatly because I wanted to play games pretty bad. I wanted to get to know Julia and John a little better and games are one of the best ways to do that. Oh well... I guess I'll just need to plan a game night party. :-D Maybe I'll have less food too, and we'll have to get John and Britney to come! Hmmm I'm getting some serious ideas as I'm writing this! Joy, joy, joy!!!
Once everyone left Tyler was kind enough to play scrabble with his game deprived wife. :-D

On Sunday we went to church, Tyler took a nap, I did homework, and we had Julie over for dinner. Julie is a good friend from nursing school and one of the nicest, most Christ like people I have met. Even though she's not LDS, she is nicer to people more than a lot of LDS folks we know. After dinner we convinced her to watch "Charly" with us. She liked it, but was bugged it was sad. I'm a mean friend. It was nice to have her over.

Yesterday I had clinicals at the crazy ward. I only have one more day left of clinicals and then I'm on my final semester of nursing school! It's nuts. I only have one more lecture for Psych and 2 tests (test 2 and final). My final is on Dec 9th. I can't even believe it that I'm 2 weeks away from being on my last semester! And a little over 5 months from graduating!!! Crazy I'm telling you! I've started talking to a few hospitals about internships and during my break will be redoing my resume and applying for internships that are available. I want to work on a Medical/Surgical or Telemetry floor. I am super excited! I can't wait to be an RN. I just love it. We go back to school Jan 22nd for the last stretch. During the break we'll be in Utah for Christmas and I'll get to visit my family in Florida. It'll be a nice break.

Thanksgiving Menu

At the Winmills for Thanksgiving:
1. Sage and bacon turkey
2. Creamy mashed potatoes
3. Stuffing
4. Corn
5. Harvest veggies
6. Green bean casserole
7. Gravy
8. Rolls


Desserts:
1. Homemade Apple Pie
2. Pumpkin Pie
3. Banana Cream Pie

Drinks:
1. Martinellis Sparkling Cider
2. Juices

Who wants to come over!?

We're a boring old couple

This past weekend we were seriously boring! On Saturday we stayed in bed until like 11am, then we got up and ran errands all day. We went to the Brazilian market and bakery in Plano to get us some yummy lunch and snacks and some Brazilian groceries. We love that place! We had rice and beans, picanha, pastel, and guarana. It is such a good price for the meal and it's yummy.


After our trip to the Brazilian market, we went to Walmart for groceries. Walmart was beyond busy and a nightmare. You couldn't even get you cart in the isles! I dropped Tyler home so he could vacuum and headed off to Target for some things I was missing.

Carly and Kevin came over to watch the BYU game and eat some Pasta e Fagioli I made in the crockpot. Everyone liked it, but me. I took a nap during the game, and after Carly and Kevin left we played games!
Tyler won both times. I suck at word games, but have a new obsession with scrabble. Please note how far my little purple book is from Tyler's blue one on Word Sweep.



On Sunday we went to church, took a nap, and baked cookies. We had the youth fireside at our house and that was fun. Once they all left we headed over to Matt and Vernice's house and took some cookies to them and I checked Vernice's blood pressure (she's prego and was having a headache) we then went over to the Nelsons to return their fold up chairs we used for the fireside and stayed until way late chatting with them. It was great to get to know them though.

Politics

I just think THIS story is too stinking funny to not post about it!