It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

After seeing Alison and Micah's beautiful tree, I hesitated to put pictures of our humble little tree. It's not beautiful, but the boys had fun decorating it.

first time for everything

This was by far the best turkey I've ever done! Well, that's because it was the first turkey I've done... but I think it did turn out well. And I even cooked it with one of the giblet bags still in there. I couldn't find it. :) I need some help with my turkey anatomy. I knew I was looking for 2 bags, but I guess I didn't dig around enough to find the "hidden bag." It was a little disgusting handling a raw bird - it just didn't feel right sticking my hand in there! Ha ha. (I'm just glad I'm not an OB-GYN and I'm glad that we don't have 15 lb. babies.) That sucker was pretty hard to handle...

Anyway, the oven bag seemed to work well. The turkey was done right on time. I knew today was going to be all a matter of timing. Alex was teasing me about planning it all out yesterday, but I had to know exactly how long everything needed to be cooked and when. And it worked out great. I cooked the sweet potato apple casserole first, then the turkey, then the rolls, then the green bean casserole (and warmed the sweet potatoes at the same time.) The mashed potatoes were cooking on the stove and the stuffing and gravy were a quick fix right at the end. Everything was done right at 2:00pm. And I was able to clean-as-you-go, so there wasn't a huge mess at the end.

my first butterball!

Alex doing his one task, carving the turkey (and then getting all the meat off later)

homemade mashed potatoes and Stovetop stuffing

homemade rolls

sweet potato apple casserole, with marshmallows!

my 2 other little butterballs (Dad dressed them today!)

We had Alex's brother Jim and Aunt Jane over to share Thanksgiving meal. Aunt Jane brought the cherry pie and deviled eggs. The boys loved the eggs.

We sure missed the rest of our family...

4-year old thoughts

Nathan has been saying funny things; just means he's thinking alot.

Today Nathan said, "Mama, if you eat a toy, the baby will have a toy to play with in your tummy."

We were driving past a construction area near Alex's work and Nathan asked when they would be done. I said, "I don't know." That wasn't good enough for him. He kept asking, and I kept giving him the same answer. Then he asked if da-da would know. I said, "Probably not." And Nathan said, "But he'll figure it out, or maybe one of his students will know." He must think da-da and his students are pretty smart (they are).

When we were playing trains this week, I was trying to help Nathan build a train track. I'm not very good at it (and Nathan knows it). Alex is so much better at building great tracks. Anyway, while in the process, Nathan said, "Mama, you're almost good at this!" Ouch! I couldn't help laughing...

pregnancy update

For those following my recent pregnancy drama, my platelets are back up to 97. They went down to 77, but they're back up. I still have about 5 weeks left. I thought I might have to go in early, like at 37 weeks, but at this point, I'm still on for December 16th. The reason is that below 100, you generally can't get an epidural or spinal block, so I'm already looking at general anethesia. That's not as safe for the baby, but it is better that he can stay "in the oven" longer. If my platelet count hovers around 100, I might be able to be awake for the birth. We'll see...but at this point, we're still looking at the 16th. They won't intervene with steroids or anything unless my platelets get below about 20. Anyway, that's the status.

Thomas

We still love Thomas! They both wanted to wear their Thomas jammies tonight. Grandmas, you can send more Thomas jammies for Christmas. We only have one pair...

fall colors

I couldn't resist taking a picture of our trees in the front (and Jared). I love the colors- they're mostly yellow right now, and probably will be a beautiful red next week.

from our kitchen window...

OSU vs. Iowa State

We took advantage of free tickets and went to the OSU football game this afternoon. It was rough sitting in the bleachers for 3 1/2 hours, but at least we got to go to a game.





It was this exciting...












Jared was awake most of the time.
He fell asleep the last 10 minutes.

Who would have thought it would be HOT in November? The boys and I had to get out of the sun for a while during the game. We went to the concession area - I wanted to get a cup so I could get some water out of the water fountain... they wanted to charge $3 for the cup (the same as a soda). Ridiculous! At least we brought a sippy cup to share...