Leftovers

Today both kids took a nap (as did mommy and daddy) because we're all trying to recover from our fun but busy weekend. I woke up and felt the need to do something with all these leftovers, so my inner Julia Child came out and I made homemade turkey noodle soup and turkey pot pie. We had made turkey stock Thanksgiving night so that was already done, you could use chicken stock if you don't have any turkey stock on hand. We also had a ton of raw veggie leftover from the appetizer my mom brought so I just threw in as many veggie as I could. Here are the recipes if you are interested:

Turkey Noodle Soup
Saute lots of cut up veggies: carrots, celery, onion, zuchini, squash, tomaotes, brocoli, etc. in 2T of olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste and a teaspoon of poultry seasonings. Add 8 cups of turkey stock, 3 cups chopped turkey, 1 can of Rotel, and 1/2 big bag of egg noodles. Simmer until noodles are cooked al dente, add a few sprigs of chopped fresh parsley stir and serve. YUMMMMMMMMM! I was kind of worried how this would turn out as I've never really made homemade chicken(or turkey) noodle soup, but it is SO good. It makes a lot, so plan to freeze some or share with a friend.

Turkey Pot Pie
I used this recipe, but I added some white wine when I added the stock and did it in a casserole dish instead of individual bowls. It's in the oven but I'm fairly certain it's gonna be a hit!
Happy Sunday!

Thank-full

For grandparents who bring treats to make while Mommy and Daddy are working in the kitchen
And for more grandparents who bring goodie bags of things to get us excited about the upcoming season
And for family walks to the lake even in the bitter cold in hopes of a possible fish
And for *A*'s beautiful turkey handprint place settings on our table to remind us of beautiful simplicity
And for an abundance of food
And for a little boy who knows his limits
And for a little girl who always tests her's

Hope your day was wonder-full!

Turkey Day Countdown

The cranberries are done, turkey's smoked, house is *almost* clean, firewood's delivered, and break is HERE!
We're expecting 10 people for Thanksgiving this year, which is actually a small number compared to year's past, and we're so ready to have a few days off, good food, and family togetherness. My dad came up yesterday and presented us with a few early Christmas presents/Thanksgiving presents that we're so excited about playing with this weekend.
The blog will be improved by these gifts too so look forward to awesome pictures with my new camera lens, and we'll now be able to post videos again too thanks to our super-cool, super-small new video camera!!! We feel very tech-savvy right now, thanks so much Dad!

Last night was our annual Soup Night at our friends the Krouse's. Soup Night started before we arrived in Sewanee and it typically happens the night before Thanksgiving break, people bring pots of soup, bread, cheese, desserts, etc. and we all have a pre-thanksgiving feast. This year there were 50 people there and it was, as always, a great time. There was a bonfire, good company, kids in crazy dress-up clothes, and yummy food. This is one of my favorite events of the year and I'm sad the Krouses won't be here to host it next year, but maybe we'll just have to carry on the tradition!

In other unrelated catch-up news, ^J^ was elected student body president for the School of Theology and he was accepted as a sacristain for the chapel. It's going to be a busy 2010 but an exciting one too! For now, we're looking forward to enjoying this weekend and the mix of excited hectic rushing with complete calm laziness afterwards. This weekend is traditionally a very crafty time for me, I feel like I have time to just sit and be creative when the house is clean and fridge is packed full. I'm looking forward to a lot of this:

This:

And this:

And lots of hiking, sleeping, and Advent preparations. Enjoy your weekend!

Kid-Feast

Today *A*'s preschool class hosted a Thanksgiving Feast complete with each student's choice of food. This preschool is pretty awesome and it is as close to Montessori we're gonna get here(it's Reggio), I wish I had found it sooner actually. *A*'s teacher was very insistent that we honor our child's choice and provide the food they requested. They asked each child what they wanted, and then sent home the list so that we'd know what to prepare for today. *A*'s choice was mac-n-cheese which was pretty tame compared to some. There was everything from pancakes to chicken fingers from a certain restaurant, to hamburgers with mushrooms to "noodles with white sauce and lima beans". It was truly a kid-feast with very little green things represented. It was lots of fun and *A* and I were able to spend some rare quality time together.

Afterwards, the kids we're high on syrup, juice, and chocolate chip cookies so they ran laps around the adults at the tables. They also sang us a Thanksgiving song and decorated and set the tables beforehand.

Scenes from a Weekend...

...spent almost completely outside...

Big and Little

On Thursday night, at the community eucharist, *A* served as an acolyte for the first time. She carried the cross (the fancy word for this is the Crucifer) in the procession and was truly amazing. I was so nervous for her, but as soon as I saw her coming down the aisle, I knew she was going to be fine. She was so confident leading the procession and looking around at everyone bowing as she passed. So then, instead of being nervous, I was tearing up. How she can be so big and yet so little all at the same time?

A Day of Firsts

Today after church, we had a traditional Sunday "dinner" and I made Pot Roast (a first). We knew ^J^ would be out studying at normal dinner-time so I decided to do the old-fashioned thing and have our big Sunday meal together at lunch-time. The pot roast was so yummy (made from locally-raised beef) and the kids ate every bite.


Also, today we ventured out to hike around Lake Cheston for the first time. We've been there to swim in the summer, but never hiked the trails and the kids really wanted to take a dog on a hike. We've heard this is a good place for dogs to run, and we knew Gracie would love to swim there. We considered bringing both dogs, but the back of our car could only handle one wet dog today. Unfortunately we were about a week off for the Fall leaves, most of them were down already, but there was still lots of fun things for pictures.

Finally!

The kids have been asking to "make a big pile and jump in it" all week so *finally* yesterday we had some time in the afternoon (no more soccer practice, whoohoo!) and we raked up a big pile after we returned from their dentist appointments. Unfortunately they would not let go of the toys from the dentist's Treasure Chest so we had many frantic searchings for lost things in the leaves. There's still a missing plastic lizard of *A*'s out there somewhere...Hope you have time to stop and jump in the leaves this weekend.

Some Color for Ya

Here's some glimpses of Fall from our drive down the mountian on our way to the grocery store a few days ago:

Boo-tastic!

We've had a great Halloween complete with multiple times for the kids to wear their costumes and many buckets full of candy from lots of trick-or-treating events. Here are some pictures to tell the story:
Last Sunday, the kids went to the Atlanta Symphony with their Gram and Papa. They are lucky enough to go 4 times a year to enjoy the symphony, but my favorite by far is the Halloween one because the whole orchestra dresses in costume!
Here's the beautiful Tinkerbell

And the handsome, but cranky from just waking up from nap, Spiderman

And here are all the cousins after at Gram and Papa's awaiting their treats...the girls had switched costumes at this point!


Thursday (H) went T-o-T around the seminary building with the Preschool Parent's Morning Out class. Here they are lined up and ready to get some candy:

"Trick-or-Treat!"

Two spider-boys enjoying pumpkin cookies afterwards


Friday the kids went T-o-T up and down "downtown" Sewanee with their preschool. I don't have any pictures since I wasn't there, but I'm told they had fun and they brought home giant bags of candy.

And then, of course, we had "real" Halloween". We had some friends over before-hand to get some dinner in the kids' bellies before the candy hit.


Then we headed over the The Woodlands, where everyone goes to T-o-T because there are so many houses in such a small area, and did the rounds. Here are *some* of the kids we toured the houses with:

You would think she's excited to get candy but she's saying "Mommy, I said 'Thank you'!"
And afterwards we did our traditional firepit, candy pig-out at our friends The Carson's house.

Good times.