Flash Books: "Two Fat Sausages" and "I'm a Nut"
What a wonderful way to spend a holiday.....with loving families, abundant laughter, and grateful hearts. I just love Thanksgiving, always have!
My parents came over to celebrate with us. It's so great to have them around again. After being several states away for so many years, it is such a blessing to have them right around the corner again. My "family unit" is somewhat small...I live so far away from the rest of my family (most of whom are back in Florida, but a few are up in Maine and some are over in Washington) that holidays are spent with pretty much just my parents. The rest of my family doesn't really keep in touch with me, with only a select few even sending a Christmas card my way. My husband's parents are in Oklahoma (which is "right next door" to Arkansas) but they, unfortunately, are not on speaking terms with us and they choose not to participate in our lives. It's actually very sad....they don't even know about Annabelle and I'm not sure they ever will. Life is so short and I find it absolutely tragic when people just can't work out their differences.
But on a happier note: Our Thanksgiving dinner was absolutely yummilicious! The turkey was juicy, the stuffing (a weakness of mine!) was moist, the green bean casserole (my older daughter made that) was flavorful, the sweet potatoes (my mom made those) were....well, sweet. I made the mashed potatoes and they were.....um...."abundant". Normally I don't make Thanksgiving dinner - we usually go somewhere for Thansgiving, but this year (and last year, now that I think about it) we ate at home. I cooked the turkey, the stuffing and the mashed potatoes. Now, mashed potatoes are not something I normally cook. We love potatoes, don't get me wrong...but we just prefer them to be cooked in other ways. Ranch potatoes are the best! Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here is that I don't cook mashed potatoes that often. Ummm, ever, actually. So I called my mom to ask her how many potatoes I should boil. Apparently she told me "approximately two potatoes per person." Has anybody ever heard of that game "telephone" where one person whispers something into somebody else's ear, then that person whispers what he just heard into the next person's ear, and so on and so forth?! Well, this is a fantastic example of how that game can fail miserably. Evidently my mother told me to boil two "POTATOES" per person, yet somehow I ended up hearing her tell me to boil two "POUNDS" per person. Yes, I did it...I boiled 10 pounds of potatoes for 5 people. I guess I don't need to mention that we had a few POUNDS leftover. I honestly don't know why I thought mashed potatoes should be counted any differently than potatoes that are cooked any other way. I never would have baked 10 pounds of Ranch potatoes for my family, so why should I think I would need 10 pounds of mashed potatoes? I guess I thought that mashed potatoes are "lighter" so people tend to eat more of them than potatoes that aren't mashed. Obviously I'm wrong. I think we all had maybe one scoop of mashed potatoes each....hardly 10 pounds' worth! I am never going to live this one down! That's OK, though, because I have an awesome recipe that calls for mashed potatoes, so these leftovers will definitely get used up. I've already divided them up into the correct portion sizes, so the next time I cook that recipe I won't need to prepare any potatoes for it! This fits in nicely with my lazy cooking style - less food prepping at meal time! :-)
Annabelle was a champ today! With all the hustle and bustle of the cooking, the loud conversations and the movie "Christmas Vacation" in the background (believe it or not, this movie is a Thanksgiving tradition in our family!) Annabelle was in a bright and chipper mood for the majority of the day. I was so proud of her! She was so attentive and would follow us with her eyes as we moved about the kitchen. She got to sit in her high chair for the first time today, although she quickly got bored sitting there. She prefers the Exersaucer, but the high chair worked for a little while. I'm sure she'll like the chair much better when I start feeding her from it! :-) She was great all through dinner, looking almost sad that she couldn't have any turkey with us!
But all in all, she was a very happy baby today!
Today was such a busy day that I didn't get any reading done with Annabelle, but we've still been plugging away at "James and the Giant Peach". It's exciting now because I can actually see that we are closer to the end of the book than we are at the beginning! We have now reached the part where James and the inhabitants of the peach are being carried through the sky and have encountered the Cloud-Men, who are busy making hailstones out of the clouds and are tossing them down at the people on earth. I'm working on developing her attention span and I think it might be working...she sat through more chapters than usual yesterday. At this point she still seems to prefer her board books, but I honestly believe the novels are actually more beneficial for her language development. Books contain so many different words that you just don't hear in normal, everyday conversation and I believe children can benefit tremendously from hearing these words. Board books are great for her visual stimulation, so we have tons of those around as well! :-)
I think we are going to put our Christmas tree up this weekend. We normally put it up the weekend after Thanksgiving. Christmas is going to be so exciting for us this year, having Annabelle here! Sometimes it is still difficult for me to believe that God chose to bless us in this incredible way! I am a little bit older than the typical "new" mom, so Annabelle's arrival is special for me in that respect. I obviously won't be able to fulfill my childhood dream of a house full of children...I'm too old for that now...but I count myself blessed to have my precious Annabelle here now. I simply can't imagine life without her! God has been undeniably gracious in giving her to us...what a priceless gift she is!
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