Gathering in Gratitude

Oh my goodness!  I have so much to catch you guys up on.  The holidays are in full swing around here!  I’ve not found the time to blog lately.  My apologies.

Let’s begin with Thanksgiving.  It was a great day spent with family and friends.  My boys began their day with a chocolate doughnut.  Cutie Pie was the messiest thanks to his full contact doughnut eating.

J spent the morning and early afternoon hauling box after box out of the attic.  His mission was and still is to organize our crap treasures that we’re storing up there.  I had to pry him away from his organization and new exterior outlet installation at 3:45 PM so he could shower for dinner.  You see, J is all about the Christmas lights.  Our house did not have a convenient outlet outside for plugging in our strands.  Every year he had to run huge extension cords from inside our garage.  The garage door wouldn’t close completely to the ground due to the cords running beneath it.  It became his other mission to fix that problem this year.

Around 4 PM (Yes, that was a 15-minute shower and change session for J.  He’s quick like that) we headed next door to Steph and Big Red’s house for a truly spectacular feast.  I brought an amazing homemade, deep dish apple pie with caramel sauce, sparkling grape juice for the kiddies and my grandmother’s cranberry salad.  Thanksgiving and Christmas are nothing without my grandmother’s cranberry salad.  Everyone that came brought a couple of dishes to share as well.  So, you can imagine the massive amount of food we had.  But that’s what it’s all about, right?

Steph’s Dad was in charge of carving the TWO turkeys!

My mom and her sister, Mimi, were in charge of the gravy.

Steph and I were in charge of wine consumption.

Before we sat down to eat, we said a little prayer and then let the kids toast with the sparkling grape juice in plastic wine glasses.  Let me tell you, they were in Heaven!  B drank so much, so fast that he ended up coughing, choking and sputtering his way through his glass.

We feasted on the many wonderful things that everyone made and enjoyed the company.  It was a very nice evening.  The weather was perfect for eating outside on the patio.  I have so much to be thankful for.

After clean-up and dessert, Steph, Yaya, Mimi and I plotted our course of action for Black Friday…  More to come on that later.  Stay tuned…

I hope you all enjoyed a special Thanksgiving full of blessings too.

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PARROTS!

So, some neighborhoods have nuisance cats or racoons or squirrels.  We have nuisance parrots.  And guess what?!  They’ve decided to set up camp in the palm tree across the street.  See?

This photo only shows three of the fifteen or so hanging out in the fronds.

Legend (according to our old guy neighbor) has it that they were pets at one time and they escaped.  Now, an inbred company of wild parrots has taken over the skies of our town.  Sweet.  You can hear them a mile away what with all the squawking and carrying on.

Wildman is totally excited to have a parrot tree across the street.  Cutie Pie thinks it’s cool too.  “Parrots!  Parrots!  Look, Mom!  Parrots!”

I suppose I should look at it as a wildlife education opportunity or something.  But really I hope they find a better tree to claim soon.  They’re so noisy.

A Whale of a Baked Pineapple

I bought Wildman this adorable Orca whale sweater from The Gap.  I was so happy that the weather was cool enough for him to wear it last week.  It’s touch-and-go when it comes to cool weather around here.  Luckily, we’ve been having cold fronts this month so Wildman’s two sweaters are getting some use.  It’s pitiful that he has only two but there have been years that his sweaters have never been worn.  He outgrew them in the balmy 70 degree winters we’ve endured.  So, off the sweaters went to the big plastic tote in the sky attic, tags still attached and all.  Luckily, Cutie Pie has benefited from this sweater stash 🙂  I expect that he’ll appreciate this “Shamu” sweater in a couple of years too.

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If you need to take a covered dish to some holiday function, let me help you out.  This is one of my favorites and is ultimate comfort food.  It shows up at our Christmas brunch every year!

Baked Pineapple

1 large can crushed pineapple, undrained
2 Tbsp flour
1/4 cup sugar
3 eggs beaten
3 slices bread, cubed
1 Tbsp sugar & 1 tablespoon cinnamon, mixed
3 Tbsp butter or margarine

Lightly grease pan. Mix pineapple, flour and sugar. Beat eggs and lightly add to the pineapple mixture. Pour into greased pan. Place bread cubes on top. Melt butter and pour over bread. Sprinkle with cinnamon & sugar. Bake at 350 degrees – 45 minutes.

Enjoy!

I’m taking this to Wildman’s preschool Thanksgiving brunch tomorrow.

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