Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving I wanted to brine our turkey for the first time.  So I read a bunch of recipes that all said to put the turkey in a 5 gallon bucket in the fridge for a couple of days.  This was a problem for me for two reasons: 1 - I'm normal and I don't have room for a 5 gallon bucket in my fridge.  2 - I only use 5 gallon buckets for storing homemade laundry detergent, mopping the floor, and cleaning out the fish tank.  There was a psychological issue involved with putting a turkey in one. So one night in my sleep (which is when I get all of my best ideas -- does this happen to anyone else?), I came up with the idea of putting the turkey in a crisper.  Sure enough, I found a tutorial online that shows you how to put your turkey and brine into an oven bag in the crisper.  For my own future reference, I used this tutorial.  It was scrumptiously tasty.

 

Instead of capturing photos of our mouthwatering dishes (hey, I was hungry once they were all on the table), I took one of our kitchen after all of our cooking was done.  I guess this is what you can expect when you make everything except the pie crust from scratch.  At least Ben and I love to cook and bake.  It was a fun food preparation marathon for us.  :)

 

Oh, and if your kitchen didn't look like this after you cooked your Thanksgiving dinner, don't tell me.

 

It's my family's tradition to decorate the house for Christmas on Black Friday.  So while the kids were down for their afternoon naps, Ben and I managed to set up the tree with most of our decorations before the kids came back down.  I can remember doing this same thing when I was little.  There's something magical about Christmas trees.

 

Something we are grateful for: our new Toyota Sienna.  How. We. Love. This. Van.  It's sort of a like a fancy hotel room on wheels (sans the free chocolates).  But more importantly, we got it for an amazing deal.  We weren't expecting to find something this nice in our price range, so it was a very pleasant surprise!

Another thing to be grateful for: after we set up the Christmas tree, Ella decided not to be allergic to our camera anymore (as she has been for the last month) and allowed us to capture a tiny glimpse of what her baby giggles are like.

 

And lastly, my sister Lizzie gave birth to our newest nephew, JJ, on Thanksgiving morning.  Happy Thanksgiving to us!  What a fantastic day!