Turkey Day...

Well, I kind of blogged in a backwards manner, eh? Wrote about Thanksgiving, but didn't post the pictures...so here are a few...

Gotta figure out how to upload video

from camcorder...

Caroline made us all laugh with

her excitement over "Toohkey Day"!
And where was Mickey???

Mindy and Caroline were anxious to snag

some turkey from the platter...

Mindy makes some mean mashed pototatoes...

Gramma Dotty puts on the finishing touch with

homemade gravy...

And what do you eat on Turkey Day? Caroline's answer? Ham and tacos. Hee. As wonderful as that sounds, we did the unimaginable and made a turkey in the turkey roaster. I tried to cut back on food since Dotty was the only one joining us for the main meal. And I was soundly corrected by my oldest. I remind you that food is her love language...and she was lookin' for love! She demanded mashed potatoes AND hash brown casserole AND macaroni and cheese...can anyone say carbohydrate coma? So, as I mentioned before, we ate ourselves into oblivion. Later on, we were joined by my parents and Mindy's boyfriend, Alex. We finally settled on playing Rummy, and Mindy promptly mopped the floor with all of us. Apparently, carbs work well for her. That girl is SO competitive!

I already covered the shopping lunacy of Black Friday. Saturday, we put up the rest of our outdoor lights...and pulled dead flowers and weed out of our pseudo-flower beds. Pathetic, I know. But I was gone pretty much every Saturday in September, October and November...remember? That afternoon, we continued our annual tradition of a family movie...this year's choice was Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. I would rather have gone to see Four Christmases, but Mindy and Alex had seen it the day before. And PG-13 isn't exactly appropriate for the younger half of our crowd. We headed home, made enchiladas for dinner...and then it was time to tackle the tree while we watched Hitch. I never get tired of that movie.

I am somewhat obsessive about the tree lights. To the point where, years ago, it became my job...and my job, only...until I have a mental breakdown when a strand in the middle of the tree goes out. Then I call in the repair crew...Jon. With just around 1000 lights on our 7 1/2 foot tree (that Jon calls The Forest due to its obnoxious girth), a malfunction is a major crisis! This year I started out with all new lights. I still had one strand that turned out to be defective, but, overall, the process went fairly smoothly.

Are you just loving their snow gear?

Sunday, we woke up to our first snow of the season...a meager, measly amount, but enough that Mickey and Caroline were breaking down the door to get out in it, if only for a moment. Even though they were freezing in their pajamas, it was all I could do to get them in to get ready for church. By the way, Caroline sure has changed in a year, eh? Check out her reaction to snow a year ago, compared with this year's...

December, 2007

December, 2008

Sunday night, we baked some cookies and attempted to decorate the tree. Don't be too impressed with our Hallmark story...the cookies were Pillsbury, and the busy weekend caught up with us. We threw a few ornaments on the tree, took a few pictures and somewhat grumpily dismissed our crew to bed. I'm falling asleep, so those pictures will have to wait until the next post. Here are a couple of our resident Cookie Monster. And to all, a good night...

Love how those 2T jeans are falling off of her 27 pounds?

And those are some triple chocolate

melt-in-your-mouth goodies...

fundraiser cookie dough, of course...

Okay, what is WITH this girl's hair???
I "heart" her way more than Christmas!

...fuzzy head, and all!