November 29, 2011

Thanksgiving 2011 Recap

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I'm going to break this post out by days, just for the sake of readability, because it might get long!

Thanksgiving Day:

Angelica's fourth (!) Thanksgiving was wonderful. We got to see both sides of the family, which was really, really great. We had breakfast at Perkins with Stefanie & Will and the kids, and my parents. All three kids had rainbow pancakes. I did take one camera phone picture of Angelica eating pancakes, because let's face it, any time this kid eats something, it's a miracle...

Angelica eating rainbow pancakes. Crappy quality, but it's an Android pic. Deal.

Afterward, we had to go home and bathe her because she was covered in syrup. Seriously. It was like she decided to take a bath in syrup. It was all in her hair. Thankfully, I had the foresight to not put her in her cute dress for breakfast.

For the actual Thanksgiving dinner, we drove up to Palm Coast to visit with Scott's family. His parents drove down from Connecticut, his Aunt and Uncle flew in from Minnesota, and his grandmother flew down from Ohio. Our dinner gathering consisted of all of them, the three of us, his sister Tarah, who drove down from Jacksonville, his grandfather, and a couple of his grandparents good friends.

Since I'm a vegetarian (though I did eat a piece of turkey this year), I made the veggie dishes -- sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, homemade cranberry sauce (which sadly did not come out nearly as well as it did last year), spinach & artichoke dip for an appetizer, and pumpkin pie for dessert. Scott's mom and grandma made the turkey, stuffing, corn, veggie casserole, salad, mashed potatoes, and more. We all ate a good meal and then enjoyed some cake and pie. Even Angelica ate some food! She kept proclaiming, "I LIKE turkey now!"

After dinner, Angelica relaxed with some cartoons while the adults cleaned and then gathered for a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit. Scott won, of course. And then we made the "long trek home" (it's less than an hour).

Black Friday

For those wondering, we did NOT go shopping early on Black Friday. We spent our morning doing this instead. (Another camera phone picture.)

Dora the Explorer fishing (crystal) game.
Angelica and I went out shopping for ornaments for the tree late in the evening (around 6pm). The crowds were nonexistent at that point. I let her pick a few from Target for the tree. The ornaments she chose included: purple snowflakes, a purple dress, a purple tiara, and a purple "tippy shoe". (She wanted two of them but I snuck one back on the shelf...we didn't need two of those!) She also almost picked a purple guitar. Are we seeing a theme here? :)

Saturday:

We kept things pretty quiet for the rest of the weekend, but Saturday, I learned of a new skill Angelica had achieved! Those of you who have been reading for awhile probably remember that Angelica used to be terrified of swings. Even as a baby, she didn't much care for her baby swing, never liked swings at the playground, and in fact, up until Easter Sunday, she would only sit on them for a few seconds, and God help you if you tried to push her. After that she grew to LOVE swings, but obviously needed to be pushed.  

So, Saturday morning, she ran out the door and hopped on a swing, and then asked me to push her. Well, I pushed her once, and then she yelled, "No! Stop! I can do it by myself!" And lo and behold, she pumped her legs and arms and was able to swing all by herself! She just needs a little push to get going and then she can swing herself. And, when she's done, she can stop herself too! I was really proud of her :)

The rest of Saturday was low-key. We went to lunch, picked up a few things we needed at Target and then hung out with my sister's family so the kids could play. We grabbed dinner with them, and by the time we were done, it was time for bath and bedtime so we headed home.

Sunday:

We had a very typical Sunday, aside from not having any RE classes. (Not sure if I mentioned before, but Scott and I teach the preschool religious education at church now...it's like the UU version of Sunday School. It's a lot of fun!) After church, we went over for social hour and Angelica made a new friend, so we wound up hanging out with the parents in the courtyard for an extra hour while the girls played.

The rest of the day consisted of grocery shopping and chores, so nothing fun to add there. :)

I'll do another post later with photos from Thanksgiving...the good ones are still sitting on my camera!



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