Happy Thanksgiving! This year was our first time staying home and attempting to do the whole Thanksgiving meal thing by ourselves. I think John and I had Thanksgiving as just the two of us the first year that we were married. Even though that was only a few years ago, I feel like I've come a long way culinarily. I don't remember everything (yes, you read that correctly, John ;) ), but I do remember making turkey breasts and dressing. Neither turned out that well.

This year was the year to go all out just for us four. John thought of it as a good practice run for future years when we could potentially host others. So, I spent a few hours looking at recipes on Sunday evening, determining how to cook what and how long it'd take. I made a timeline for the week to prep certain things in advance, like chopping all of the onions, celery, etc. Then, it was game day (pun intended).

It started out really easy and peaceful. I did the stuffing and prepped the bird as I was supposed to and get her in the oven.

I cleaned up the kitchen in a few minutes...

and then went to see what the family was up to. At one point, John and LE were building towers downstairs while Hannah slept. At another point, I went upstairs to find them having a party with all of LE's dolls in a circle around toy cupcakes and brownies. LE was singing the alphabet to them all while playing the "violin."

A little earlier than planned, the turkey registered at the right temperature. It looked perfect!

The dance began of putting all of the things in the oven and on the stove at the right times. This was the hardest part but still not bad. 

John carved the turkey and found that parts of the dark meat were not actually done yet, so we just set the dark meat aside to cook separately and went ahead with the white meat. I'm not sure what I'd do differently since I checked the internal temperature multiple times out of the oven. I must say that this allowed the white meat to not dry out, though, and it was well-flavored and moist. Woohoo!

LE had been patiently waiting all morning for her "'pecial lunch." Somehow that equated in her mind to PB&J. She burst into tears, and through sobs proclaimed over and over, "I wanted peanut butter and jellllly!" It was hard not to laugh. 

 

With the promise of a PB&J after she finished her other special lunch, she liked everything, especially the "chicken" with ketchup. It's not Thanksgiving without the ketchup! 

And little Hannah was held most of the meal until she pooped out of her diaper resulting in two of us needing to get changed. She promptly fell right to sleep in her swing after that. ;)

All in all, the dinner was great. The gravy was especially tasty, and the stuffing was best the next day. Turkey, mushroom and walnut stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and rolls. 

And here's my favorite part, of course.

k

Happy Thanksgiving!

2 Months: Hannah

Hannah and Lauren were both in great moods right before naptime, so I spread a blanket across the floor near the window in our master bedroom, opened the blinds, and put Hannah down on the blanket. Lauren instantly wanted to be next to her. I managed to get a couple of my favorite photos of the two together. These show just how much Lauren loves to be close to Hannah. 

None of Hannah’s big, gummy smiles were captured, but the look in her eyes commands me to stop and stare for a moment.

The photo spreads are taken from the photobook that I'm putting together, which makes the text hard to read in this format. In case you can't read the text above, I'll write it out again:

at two months [Hannah]...

• smiles and coos often, especially at family & a toy cow 

• rolls over and holds her head up like a 4 month old 

• won’t take a pacifier or bottle 

• sleeps most of the day in her swing 

• wakes up every 2-3 hours to eat at night 

• comes in at the 48th percentile for weight (11.72lb) and 87th percentile for height (23.7in) /// (Lauren was 12.2lb and 23.5in) 

•  is getting over her painful evening gas in her belly & takes medicine for reflux 

my girls

Cranberry Almond Quinoa Cookies

John sent me a recipe a few weeks ago for cookies made in part with my relatively new favorite food, quinoa. If you're unfamiliar with quinoa, Google it and then come back. I'm sure you'll find that it's considered a super food and is packed with protein and amino acids. The directions I use for making fluffy quinoa is at The Kitchn.

I have only seen quinoa used as a substitute for grains and never in cookies. My hope was that the cookies would be extra filling so that I wouldn't want to eat the whole batch.

These were really easy to make and turned out to be similar to muffin tops as far as flavor and texture go. They're a nice alternative to really sweet cookies, and I'll pretend that they're healthy since they are made with quinoa, oats, white whole wheat flour, and craisins. ;)

The recipe can be found at Bon Appetit. My only tweaks for next time would be to add a crunchy nut (like walnut), cut back the salt to 3/4 tsp (instead of 1 tsp of Morton's Kosher, which is saltier than other Kosher salt), and perhaps add a big handful of white or dark chocolate chips.

If it's cold where you are, I highly recommend enjoying a couple with a cup of chai tea prepared with a splash of milk and honey.

independent play

LE has a big imagination. Did you know that she has a wolf named Wolfie who has lived under her tongue since just before H was born? He's invisible, so don't feel bad if you haven't seen him. She feeds him little bites of food. Sometimes LE uses two fingers to take Wolfie out of her mouth so that she can push him on her trike (he wears her helmet, of course).

I suppose some kids have imaginary friends and most probably have a whole collection of stuffed animals and dolls that are their friends as well. LE is no exception. Nonetheless, I still pause to secretly watch whenever I catch her talking with them.

A few times I've caught her singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes" with her doll, LeLe, moving LeLe's arms to the song.

When putting a shirt on LeLe, I overheard her say, "Find my fingers, WeWe. You found dem, WeWe! You found dem!" (I used to instruct LE to try to find my fingers as a way to help her figure out where the armholes are.)

LE continues to be really into hide and seek. I'm sure I'll post about that later since I have a few photos of her great hiding spots. When she's desperate to play, she'll sometimes play it with her toys and dolls. One time I heard her put LeLe like the closet, close the door, go away, count to 10, and then announce, "Here I tum!!" Then, she ran right to the closet to find LeLe: "I found you!!"

The photos in this post are from last weekend when she was playing by herself in her bedroom. I peeked in to find her tucking her animals in on the wagon and wrapping them carefully with a blanket, telling each of them exactly where she wanted them in the wagon.