This year, for the first time, we hosted Thanksgiving at our home. I have seen my in-laws and my mom prepare many a Thanksgiving dinner, but doing it on my own was quite different. Luckily Connie and Clair came to visit so I had experienced help, and we cut some corners from the usual to make it achievable. Our first mistake was assuming the turkey would be done when the packaging said it would, it took like an additional hour and a half. But outside of the waiting, everything went well. We had turkey, homemade stuffing, homemade gravy, homemade mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and yams in a brown sugar glaze, homemade chocolate and apple pie (my best one yet, I believe). We were missing my grandma's homemade rolls, but the store bought ones did just fine, Whole foods also provided our cranberry sauce and pecan pie (I'm allergic so I'm not about to spend time making one).
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Since I have little counter space,
I had to roll out the pie on the floor |
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| MMMMMMM |
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| A great little helper |
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| With all the fixin's |
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| The pumpkin flan |
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| Allison, me and Connie |
In addition to Connie and Clair, some members of our church with no other family in the area came, (the wife of this couple is from the DR and made a delicious flan) and my coworker, Allison came as well since she was unable to make it home during the break.
In addition to the meal, while Connie and Clair were here, we went to Edaville for the second time, a train theme park that Elliott LOVES because it is perfect for a toddler, and everything is train-themed. For the holiday's they also had a light show and a Christmas village. We also visited a special train exhibit at the Museum of Science, went bowling and visited Rockport, MA and the surrounding area. Since they'll be gone for a year and a half, we really appreciated having the time to spend with them before they left.
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| At the Museum of Science |
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| The decoration at Edaville |
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| On a train ride to see the lights |
For Christmas, we went to Utah with my parents again this year (disrupting our usual schedule because we thought the Hixson's would already be on their mission when we booked our tickets). As always, it was the Christmas children dream of, with all the Christmas goodies, Nathan won the Nut Game this year, and Elliott loved every minute of time spent with family, especially his little cousin Abby. For Christmas, he got a set of dress-up costumes of a doctor, policeman, and fireman and an art easel because his teachers at school tell us he is quite the artist (not that he is especially talented yet, but that he really loves doing it and takes it very seriously).
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| Choosing our Christmas tree in Boston |
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| Decorating the tree |
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Nathan sensored the box of his gift to me so
I couldn't tell what it was... ended up being a new bed
(since we've been sleeping on a rolling metal frame for 7 years) |
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| Meeting Santa |
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| Santa pancakes |
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13 stockings, most made by my mom (even the one I attempted to
make her was still completed by her), hung by the fire with care |
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| Checking out the snow |
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| Building with his new drill with his engineering uncle |
Abby also turned 2 and I made her cake, which was quite a feat but I had lots of help and it turned out really well.
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| What it looked like after Elliott kept stealing the shells off the outside |
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