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Raise the Song of Harvest Home

We have much to be grateful for this year, loving family, the arrival of our boy, and the blessings of the restored gospel. I love that we have a holiday to reflect on and celebrate our blessings.

It was my first time cooking a turkey and I think it was still frozen when I put it in. Finally after 5 hours in the oven with the bottom half still raw, we decided to just eat what was cooked and forget about the rest. It looked really good, and wasn't too dry considering how long it was in the oven.

We feasted on all the traditionals, sweet potatoes, creamed corn, mashed potatoes, rolls, carrots, corn bread stuffing, and pumpkin pie!

Waiting for the turkey gave us some time to make Thanksgiving hats. 

Of course, it would not be Thanksgiving without the Thanksgiving Pudding. This is a tradition in my family that represents the beginning of the giving season. There are presents for each person in a basket with a long string attached to each, everyone pulls there sting at once and you have to untangled all the strings to get your present.  James was so tried from all the excitement of the day, he was already in bed and missed the Thanksgiving Pudding. 

We spent the rest of the weekend decorating for Christmas, making donuts and visiting the Christmas display in Frisco. The city of Frisco had created a light display downtown that was synchronized to Christmas music.

I had more pictures, but blogger just said I have exceeded my picture capacity. So you will just have to wait until I figure this out.

An Unexpected Day in Plano

The check engine light of our Subaru blinked on last Thursday. My own response to this is to keep driving as usual and hope that the light will eventually go off.  Sam had a more responsible approach. On our way to have the car looked at we started to smell something burning, and then saw smoke coming out of our hood.  Good thing we were on our way to get it fixed. We were given a loaner car to drive for the day, a 2012 Subaru Outback. We felt super cool driving around in a new car, although it was green, which is a shameful color for a car.

We spent the day in Plano, where the dealership is, waiting for the car to be done. We had fun going to stores and make James try on cute little hats. At 3:30 we received a call informing us that the Subaru would not be done until Monday- so we got to have the new car for the rest of the weekend. Super fun.  Sam is going to be sad to have to give it back today. 

I love these little white jeans. 

Cheesecake Pie

For this week's Sunday treat we made a cheesecake pie with blackberry sauce. It was quit delicious.

Sam and I tried to see who could make the plating look the most gourmet. You decide.

James is getting better and better at his scoot crawling everyday. Saturday night while Sam opened all the windows and doors and I wafted the smoke that was billowing out of our oven away from the screaming smoke detector,  James found his way right out the front door. Two lessons learned, one, James can move much faster now, and two, my oven should never be turned to 500 degrees. 

Here are a few recent shots of James.

Bath Time

Practicing Sitting (I love these pants)

Laughing

Someone Figured Something Out

An Unofficial Haircut

This week we had to trim the hair that was growing over James' ears. It was starting to look ridiculous.

November in Dallas is beautiful. On Saturday it was 75 degrees with a light breeze and we were enjoying being outside. 

The best part of the day for James is when Dad comes home. He kicks his legs in excitement and screams out in joy. He loves his papa. Sam was swinging James around in this grocery bag and James was loving it. 

Happy Halloween

I was so excited for Halloween this year, as it gives me an excuse to do one of my favorite things- dress up! Sam learned early on in our courtship that his Halloween celebrations would never be the same. Lately Sam and I have been watching all the episodes of Poirot. It is a masterpiece theater dramatization of Agatha Christie's famous Belgium detective Poirot. So it seemed natural that this would be the inspiration for our costumes. Sam was Poirot and I was Miss Marple (another of Agatha Christie's sleuths).

We ate our Halloween dinner of macaroni and cheese and dead man's meat loaf, handed out candy to the ten kids that knocked on our door, and watched my favorite Halloween movie- The Ghost and Mister Chicken. With my make-up I was going for old-but when I asked one of the tricker treaters what I was, he responded,  "A Zombie Mom!" (some days I don't have to dress up for that one).

The joy of having two Grandmas is having two costumes for Halloween. James was so tired we had just enough time to dress him in each and put him to bed.

When we were waiting for James to arrive, we had not picked out a name, so the nick name Baby P developed (short for baby Powell). So one of his costumes he was Baby Pea.

His second costume, obviously a gift from his Grandma Powell, was just as adorable.