Thanksgiving

Our holiday was great! How was yours?

Thursday was a mad flurry of cooking in the kitchen.

Notice FOUR pots on the stove...
that Never happens in our house.

Many thanks to Angie for letting us know about
the square tablecloths at Target. It added a nice touch.

Brandon (inspired by Shrek) always wants
to eat the whole big turkey leg.
Last year, the meat was so moist that it all just
fell apart. Andrew tried to be very gentle
this year and it worked!

Here we are getting ready to pig out:

Me and Brandon

My cousin, Lee, and our friends from church,
Shelley and Michael

Andrew and Whitney

The food was great. The company was fun. It was a wonderful day. I was most impressed with my pie-making abilities. The pumpkin pie rocked. I also made a chocolate cream pie that was a big hit--especially with the kids. I burned the rolls a bit on the bottoms. The sweet potatoes were so/so. I don't think I added enough butter. I still liked them, but I don't think anyone else did. Brandon kept asking for more, but was just picking off the marshmallows. Andrew did a great job on the turkey. He brined it again this year--yummy.

SHOPPING--does anyone else go day-after-Thanksgiving shopping? This was my second year going. Last year, we wanted a camcorder and a GameBoy Advance and they were both available as great deals, so I ventured out early and scored. This year, our mall opened at 1 o'clock in the morning. There were a few sales that I thought would be fun to hit and I didn't think it would be too crowded since it was the middle of the night. Boy was I wrong! I'm not the only crazy woman willing to stay up until all hours of the night to save a buck. That place was packed!!! I did get some great deals, but I had to wait in line 1/2 an hour to pay for them. And then I found out that some of my items had been mis-labeled and were actually a lot cheaper than I thought they were going to be. Normally I'm happy about a surprise like that, but if I would've known how affordable the stuff was, I would've gotten more! I couldn't handle waiting in line for another 1/2 hour, though, so I left. I got a couple of hours of sleep and then woke up just after 5 to be at Target before 6. There was a gift I wanted (which will remain nameless at this time). I got there at 5:37 am and the line was almost all the way down to the next store in the strip mall. Ridiculous! When they let us in, I walked directly to a particular department, just in time to see the employees hand out the last of the item I wanted. NOOOOOO! I got a couple gifts for the kids and left to see if I could find the mystery gift at another store. Two others in the area were offering it at a good price. Both of them were already sold out. What is up with that? Very disappointing. I stopped and got one present for Drew and then headed home, exhausted. I think I'm still recovering.

Friday night we took the kids to one of our favorite places in the world--Chuck E. Cheese's. Yes, I won the bonus on skee-ball, so it was a good night. :) Whitney wanted Andrew to get a picture taken with her. They sat at the photo booth and I don't know what happened, but Whitney was upset about something and this is how the photo turned out:

That's a keeper!

Today has been a busy day, too. Andrew had to be to the church by 7 am to get the youth set for a temple trip. I took the kids to a birthday party at 9. Andrew performed a marriage at 11:30. Now everyone is taking naps and I'm about to join them.