Foody Friday- Thanksgiving!

This was tonight's spread.  We had our big feast tonight instead of yesterday because my man had to work a night shift and would have missed dinner. It turns out he missed tonight's too because a 'certain someone' refused to be quiet when I asked her to and woke him up three times! So us girls made the best of the evening that we could. It was my Aunt, her 'part-time pup', my Marshmallow Girl and I. It would have been easy to go to a bitter place in my heart tonight, and I did peek in on it, but I really do have so much to be thankful for that I forced myself to look at those good things instead. Like having no family members deployed right now, generally good health all around, and the promise of seeing more family soon at Christmastime!

This food was quite yummy as well! It was a cooperative effort between my Aunt and I. She did the side salad, roast turkey breast, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. I made green bean casserole, candied yams, and cranberry relish. We also had Martinelli's Sparkling cranberry cider and pumpkin pie from Costco with Aunt's real fresh whipped cream. For my dishes, I took recipes from French's, Bruce's, and allrecipes then  put my own little special touches to them. I kind of don't want to give away my secrets but I will say the main difference is that the green beans have bacon, the yams have marshmallows, and the berries are clovey! These were so scrumptious, and there's plenty of leftovers, hooray!

Over the next couple days I will be looking for a good recipe for our leftover turkey tenders that I did for the little dinner my girl and I had last night.  I am thinking of chopping it up and adding it into butternut squash lasagna or perhaps a casserole with mixed veggies, rice and creamy white sauce topped with bread crumbs.

All this talk of human food is making me realize our cats haven't had their dinner yet!

I hope you enjoyed the pics and links. More importantly I wish you and your loved ones a continued safe and happy holidays!

welcome, Christmas

welcome, Christmas
Originally uploaded by caramews

I suppose the berries do apply to Christmas and Thanksgiving. Even though I don't get to see this wreath everyday because I'm usually driving into the garage for house entry knowing it's up to greet people makes me happy. I want to put up more holiday decorations but we have a rule that Christmas decorations don't go up until the day after Thanksgiving. Since I don't have any Thanksgiving specific decorations that I know of, I'm stuck dreaming about what we will be putting up and where.

We will have colored lights outside- spiraling them along all the posts on the front porch and outlining the structure of the roof.
I would love to buy a large lit decoration for out front, something of the religious sort like a wicker and lights angel or a lit from within Creche set.

Inside the tree will have white lights, our home modified lit star on top, the motley crew of ornaments, and on Christmas Eve candy canes on the boughs. I don't have much in the way of decorating nick-knacks but I would like to get the long garlands to weave in the banisters and above doorways. Ooh, and maybe some mistletoe! =) It would be fun to put a nice large sprig of it right above the front door! I can also add to the holiday atmosphere by streaming my music, at least until the 'looks' start coming in from my family members! ;)

This year there will be many family members passing through our threshold. Mom, Dad, both Brothers and their families will be coming from out of state and there's my Aunt, Cousin and her Husband who live here in CO. Mom and Dad have already seen the house,but nobody else has. No, not even the local branch of the family! I better get to straightening things up more, here.

In a Slump

I've been in a bit of a slump for a while now. Feeling like none of the pictures I take are very good, there's nothing really that I want to talk about, and I've been anxious about school related stuff. I'll keep on keepin' on and hope things start looking up.