Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving this year as always! Thanksgiving is definitely one of my favorite holidays (used to be my favorite, Christmas might win now with kids). We were lucky to be able to have Jeremy's brother Jared and his cute kids for Thanksgiving this year! We also invited the Sister Missionaries and we had a great time! I was a little nervous for our first "gluten-free" Thanksgiving, but it turned out really well! I was not planning on doing anything with gluten, but the week before, after talking with the sisters and hearing that their favorite thing about it was rolls, I decided to go ahead and make rolls. I made them the week before while Eli was at school and then froze them so I wouldn't have flour flying around the kitchen contaminating everything the day of. It turned out great and made Thanksgiving day a lot less busy!

We had a delicious feast and definitely went overboard with the pies. Everyone had at least one request (I didn't even get one because there were too many already!) and before we knew it, we had 6 pies for 10 people. Yikes! It was a bit much. I was really sick of making and eating pie by the time it was all over. They were delicious! Don't get me wrong, but I actually don't really like making pie and so it was a lot of pie...luckily Jeremy helped a lot since I didn't have any sisters to help this year!

And I made the kids help on the ones they requested. Anna helped with with the berry...

Anyway, so Jared and Ben and Lucy arrived the day before Thanksgiving. We had a fun afternoon playing with them. They explored the woods behind our house and we played some games.

Then the next day was feast day! That morning the kids made some cute craft decorations I picked up the week before and then we had the traditional Nowland h'ors doeuvres for lunch. Yum!

We kept it simple this year - veggie tray, cheese ball, salami and olives, cheeses, and fruit (and crackers, not pictured).

 Then Jared and the kids watched a Planet Earth in our basement "theater" and we finished up getting everything ready.

Jeremy rocked the turkey this year! So moist and flavorful. Way to go babe!

 I gathered some greenery from our yard and woods for our table. It was fun!

 We also moved the table into the dining room again. Someday we'll get a dining table, but this works great!

 Feast time!

 We had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing (not gluten-free actually but Eli doesn't like it anyway), sweet potato "casserole", green beans with onions and almonds, shaved brussels sprouts salad, honey lime fruit salad, and rolls - gluten-y and gluten-free.

Jeremy's beautiful plates...man that looks good!

 Grace helping load the dishwasher after dinner...

 Jared de-boning the turkey.

 The sisters played a game with the kids after dinner...

 And then we had pie...

 Somehow this is the only picture I got of the pies, which wasn't even on Thanksgiving (day before) and wasn't even all the pies! I am missing the lemon cream here. Oh well. Anyway, they were all delicious and all gluten-free!

 Friday morning we went to Jeremy and Jared's cousin's house for breakfast and visited with them for awhile. Eli had fun burying Lucy in the leaves!

Then we came back, ate lunch (and more pie), played another game, and then they took off for home. It was a great Thanksgiving!

Family Pictures

 

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween this year! We celebrated first at our church Trunk-or-Treat last Wednesday. In this ward, it's always the youth that put it on, and they start out with carnival games in the gym for 30 minutes or so, followed by the trunk-or-treat. It was fun!

Then on Thursday, we carved our pumpkins! The pumpkins we had were pretty soft and super easy to carve, which was really nice. The kids drew their faces on their pumpkins and then we cut them out. I'm thinking next year Eli should be able to cut his own out...we'll see. I did a bat for Grace, but then realized I totally did the wings the wrong way - upside down. I'm sure Jeremy noticed but didn't say anything! Haha.

 Eli, Connor, Anna, Grace

We also started a tradition last year of making doughnuts in the fall (last year was after we went apple picking), and I wasn't going to let a little gluten-free diet keep us from doing it this year! I tried a new recipe, obviously, and it was delicious!!! I liked them even better than last year. So after we carved our pumpkins we enjoyed some tasty doughnuts and some apple cider.

 I rolled them out a little too thin, but they were still delish. Next year I'm investing in a doughnut cutter, so they look better!

Then Monday was Halloween! The boys got to dress up at school and enjoyed that. Eli doesn't usually like to participate in dress-up days at school, but he was glad he did this time. Eli was Harry Potter, Connor was a pirate (just like last year), Anna said for weeks she wanted to be Batgirl, but then changed her mind to a princess, and Grace of course was a pumpkin!

It's so fun to see all my cute babies together like this! Grace doesn't hold still much, so it was hard to snap a picture of her, and that tongue is always hanging out!

We have a great neighborhood for trick-or-treating. I never really liked it until we moved here. Everyone comes out onto their driveways in their lawn/camping chairs, many with their firepits going, and it's a great neighborhood activity. Most people just go on this one main street, so those of us on little cul-de-sacs usually just bring stuff to pass around. I brought some glow sticks and I'm pretty sure Jeremy had the most fun with those...he was wearing 4 bracelets by the end of the night and ready to go to a rave. It was a fun Halloween!