Thanksgiving 2018

Thursday, November 22:  Thanksgiving 2018

I'm going to try to summarize our day--you see, it didn't play out exactly as we had planned. I took very few pictures (sadly) but I'll post the few that I have.

I don't have a television, intentionally; so the Lions game cannot be watched over here very easily. Rumor has it that I could pick it up on my computer somewhere, but I don't care enough about the Lions to actually find out! Their Thanksgiving Day game began somewhere around 12:30 and would end probably three hours later. I talked Dylan and Kelly into staying at their house to watch the game (and Shane with them). They thought perhaps they could just catch it over here and we could kind of eat and watch, etc. And I don't blame them one single bit for that plan! It SOUNDS like it would work.

Sigh. However, I am NOT an intuitive chef whatsoever; and getting on a big meal is somewhat of a challenge for me. I told the kiddos that I would be best left to cook here without them and then have them join me after the game and we could eat our (hopefully) yummy meal then. Had they all come over earlier, during the time when I was cooking/carving the turkey, making gravy, etc. the littles would have been quite under foot--they are used to having me all to themselves when they are here, and I purposely prepare what we eat WAY ahead of time so that I am not in the kitchen over much when they are here. I can't cook and talk at the same time. I can't cook and hold babies at the same time. I can't cook and LISTEN to great conversations at the same time. In short, I can't cook and do anything else at the same time!

Thankfully, I convinced them that my plan was the only one. However, there was also a side plan. You see, Jesse's family was invited too--but they always spend Thanksgiving first with Di's family (for a brunch) and then Diana fixes a turkey later in the day. She is super good at fixing turkey and I didn't want to take her away from that; so I invited their family to join us for dessert at about 6:30 or so.

Let me run some pictures ...

First of all, THESE babies. Look at them! Are they the cutest babies EVER? Yes, I know, they certainly are! 

 Baby Erin is FIVE MONTHS OLD already! Yikes. She is growing so fast. People are soon going to confuse Erin and Aidan as twins.

 My baby Aidan almost looks like he has reddish hair in these pictures! I wish! Erin too! It must just be the lighting, because I don't think either one of them will be gingers.

Kelly brought a bunch of yummy gluten, egg, dairy, and peanut-free food for her and for the babies. I concocted a rice and broccoli casserole for them (free of any offending ingredients). I cooked the turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, carrots, banana and pumpkin breads and a few desserts too. Cooking like that is rather exhausting. I hope we can think of a different plan for Christmas. I thought the turkey was a bit dry as well (sigh). Anyway, we ate our meal and everyone seemed to enjoy it. 

Brendan had made some rice crispy treats (chocolate ones) for his cousins to enjoy and decorated them with very cool frosting. He was super excited to show them and had one designed for each particular cousin: Emma, Chris, Matt and Kaity. We waited for Jesse's family to come and finally received a text that their turkey was still in the oven and that it was going to be awhile before their meal would be ready. It was getting late here, the babies were fussy (Aidan was crazy tired ... he walks around in circles when he is that exhausted and he is so darling ...), so by about 7:45 or so, everyone went home. We told Jesse's family not to worry. Brendan was very sad and shed a few tears about not seeing his cousins, but we told him we would try to arrange a time soon for him to see them. Holidays are stressful, aren't they? For the most part, ours was just fine. It is always good to be with family. Believe it or not, this was baby Erin's introduction to the Beach House! She seemed to like it here just fine, but her mom and dad were close by attending to her--so what was not to be happy about?