Saturday, November 22, 2008

Thanksgiving preparations

We've officially started planning for Thanksgiving with a marathon shopping trip. I've been hosting Thanksgiving at our house with my parents and brother since we moved here, and I really enjoy it. The cooking goes on for days, and I've started already making some apple butter in my slow cooker for breakfast.

The Thanksgiving menu looks like this:
  • Smoked peppered turkey from New Braunfels Smokehouse (Dad ordered that for us and it will be delivered in a few days)
  • Cornbread dressing (baked in muffin tins so everyone gets some of the crusty edges)
  • Sweet potato casserole (mashed with eggnog and topped with marshmallows)
  • Chunky sweet potatoes roasted with orange juice, brown sugar, and pecans
  • Mashed potatoes and gravy
  • Purple hull peas
  • Sweet green peas (some plain and some covered in white sauce)
  • Rolls Mom is picking up at the Mennonite bakery
  • Pecan Pie
  • Italian Cream Cake

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Mean Kitty

Annabelle's new favorite game is "Mean Kitty." A couple of weeks ago, she started crawling around the house saying "Meow" all the time. I mean all the time. It's the first thing she does when she wakes up and the last thing she does before she goes to bed. But she is not a sweet little kitten. She scratches. So now most of our interaction with Annabelle involves teaching her how to be a nice kitty and not scratch people. We actually don't see Annabelle too much anymore--just Mean Kitty. (I blame Shannon--one of his favorite games to play with the kids is "Mean Dog." You can imagine how that goes.)

Halloween fun

We had great fun with Halloween. Annabelle wasn't sure about her costume at first, but as soon as we started trick-or-treating she perked up. She tried to go in and stay at the first house we went to--I guess she thought these people were pretty nice for giving her candy. They both had just as much fun handing candy out at our house as they did trick-or-treating themselves.