Turkey, Trees, and Tinkerbell

Over the past few days . . .

. . . my not-so-favorite moments included . . .

. . .  Todd waking up every 90 minutes or so in the night.  I felt like I would just get back to sleep, then he'd wake me up again.

. . . running an errand to Rite Aid, and discovering that they're already selling Christmas trees.  For goodness' sake, we're not even past Thanksgiving!  As I strolled past candy canes, nutcrackers, and random Christmasy flubbdubbery, I heard Bing Crosby croon "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" over their sound system and thought, "Bing, you are not kidding."

. . . my favorite moments included . . .

. . . the big kids staging a light saber duel between Lego Star Wars Darth Maul (Daniel) and Finn McMissile.  It was the weirdest mashup I'd ever heard of until ten minutes later, when Joy proposed a duel between Darth Vader and Tinkerbell.  Daniel refused to go along with that one.

. . . cuddling Todd while tickling Anna.  It doesn't get much better than that.

And another thing . . .

. . . for a few years now, I've wanted to try cooking a Thanksgiving feast for our little family.  Maybe I'm crazy, since relatives on both sides are perfectly willing to do the task for me, but for some reason I really wanted to try cooking turkey and some sides, just to see how it would all turn out.  This past weekend I prepped a bunch of things beforehand and my husband agreed to watch the kids while I prepared a turkey breast in the pressure cooker, mashed potatoes on the stove, sweet potato casserole in the oven, broccoli in the microwave and grapes . . . in the fridge.

The turkey was a little tough and stringy (preparing turkey is an art, and I think I'm still at the fingerpainting stage), but it was edible and the other things turned out well.  It was satisfying to have pulled the whole thing off, and our family enjoyed taking turns talking about what we're grateful for (e.g. the Gospel, good music, and eyeballs).