Thanksgiving 2010

This year we had a re-run (kind of) of Thanksgiving 2009. Since Tim has to work on Thanksgiving, we invited Nannie and Poppy up to our house. They arrived on Thursday morning and stayed through Saturday morning.

Noel I spent Wednesday making the side dishes, casseroles, and desserts. I also cut up the onion and celery we'd need for the dressing, just to save on time.

We had a bigger meal this year, although we were down one person (Tim's co-worker). We had...

Turkey
Dressing
Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Broccoli Casserole
Macaroni and Cheese
Pinto Beans
Deviled Eggs
Cranberry Salad
Rolls

And for dessert:
Pumpkin Pie
Cherry Pie
Chocolate Pecan Pie
Red Velvet Cheesecake

For 4.5 people, we had a feast! I actually ended up throwing some food out today (how sad!).

Anyway, here are my 4 measly pictures!

Kitty Cat Obsession

Noel LOVES kitties, so I had a friend make a hat for her and it turned out GREAT. Noel loves it too!

November Leaves

We haven't done the first thing with our leaves this year. This is due to the following:

1) Our lot is an acre, and we have dozens of mature oak trees. Yea. Daunting.
2)We only have ONE puny metal rake.
3)None of our trees really dropped any leaves until about 3 days ago.

So until we find a solution to our leaf problem (which I'm guessing will probably be a leaf blower), I raked a little pile of leaves up for Noel to play in.

Here are some photos!

Her shirt reads "2 Cute in Camo" - Tim got it for her
birthday

Look at her hair in this one! I love it!

The Late Pumpkin Patch Trip

The mommies (and daddies) of our playgroup have been planning a trip to the orchard/pumpkin patch for a month now. Unfortunately, each week it kept getting postponed due to the weather.

So we finally made it, and we had a blast. No lines. No crowds. Perfect!

Noel loved the hayride, and both Willow and Noel insisted upon sitting with each other. They are absolutely adorable together. They share some of the same personality traits...the ones that will eventually get them in trouble if they continue their friendship. ;-) They are both fearless explorers, always looking for their next adventure. And they are so hardy - scratches, bumps, bruises, no problem! They get up and keep going!

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Our trip to the pumpkin patch might have turned out better than it would have had we gone "on time". We received two free pumpkins with our hayrides (although I have to say this...the hayrides were quite hay-less). Sure, why do we need pumpkins now? But autumn is still in full effect, with vivid and changing colors on each tree.

I'm undecided what I will do with them...I've considered carving a cornucopia into one of them for Thanksgiving. Or using it as a decorative outdoor planter for a few weeks. Does anyone have any other suggestions for our post-Halloween pumpkins?

Artistic Noel

As I mentioned before in a previous entry, Noel and I have been finger painting away. I move her craft table into the kitchen, remove clothing and/or drape her with a cover-up, supply the paint and paper, and tell her to go to town.

I think at this point she mostly just likes to feel the paint on her hands, though. She mixes all of the colors together to produce this fantastic brown color and just swirls it around, as seen in the following video:

I did get a pretty good hand print of hers, though. For the time being it is displayed in her room. I will try to get a picture of that this weekend to post!

"Look mommy, make-up!"

The other day (after our fingerpainting activity was over), Noel came running to me exclaiming "Look Mommy! I Did it! Make-up!"

After I took a look at her face, I immediately had wished I owned some kind of normal lipstick, or that she had chosen a "paint" that wasn't so permanent. It was one of those permanent lip stains that you have to remove with vaseline.

But, vaseline didn't really work, so it took three days of washing/scrubbing to remove it!