Yes, we did.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner in our pajamas.

No need to loosen the proverbial belts.  They’re elastic.  Sweet.

This was the first year I have ever prepared the entire Thanksgiving meal by myself.  Chris gets credit though for washing dishes as we went.

The menu included turkey (no picture – it was sad looking coming out of the roasting oven but it was SO yummy, very juicy!)…

…sweet potato stuffing…zucchini au gratin…

…these yummy bacon bundles – a recipe from our worship pastor’s wife, Monica…(I didn’t get the recipe exactly right but even still, they were SO good!)…

…and these are supposed to be cloverleaf rolls but I ran out of muffin pans (must invest in more) so improvised on the pizza stone…then they looked ore like shamrock rolls or something…but even so, yummy!  Making them from scratch wasn’t too terribly hard either.

We also had baked macaroni and cheese, pecan pie and pumpkin pie (store-bought).

My mom and dad and Aunt Judy were in town for the festivities as well!

I highly recommend PJ’s for Thanksgiving Day.

Gone Cookin'

• Still recovering from the flu, but we are doing great!
• S and I haven’t left the house since Friday night.
• I made Pioneer Woman’s Carrot and Squash Curry Soup tonight.
• Success!
• The funny part was that I had just been talking about a similar recipe with my Aunt Macie the day before…then Pioneer Woman was gracious enough to read our minds and post her recipe for it.
• So nice of her to do that.  *cheesy grin*
• I rounded out the meal with homemade ranch dressing on salad and homemade croutons.
• The kids love helping make the croutons – tearing the bread apart, tossing them in the olive oil…
• …then eating them all once they are done.
• I finally made a successful batch of mayonnaise!  Yea!  I love the taste of it, too.  I used this recipe.
• I am keeping G home from school this week just in case.  I would hate to spread it to his classmates and their families.
• Oh, yes, he misses it.  Who am I kidding??  *I* miss it!  LOL
• So we are working on the letter J at home this week.  It’s amazing how much free preschool stuff there is online for the letter J!
• We’re going to do a lesson about the fall season this week, too.  Tomorrow:  Leaves.
• G is asking about FIVE times a day when he’s going to turn FIVE.  He’s so excited.
• S keeps asking for her birthday cake.
• It’s going to be a busy holiday/birthday season this year…
• …and for many years to come.
• Sweet blessings.

Going Nowhere

I haven’t updated my 101 in 1001 list in a loooooong time so here goes…

3.  Complete the family video for 2006.  DONE.  Amazing, I know…

4.  Start and complete the family video for 2007.  STARTED.  Hopefully it won’t be 2011 by the time it’s done…

19.  We’ve gone to the zoo a couple more times.  It’s finally great weather for it.  Not too hot, not too cold, juuuuuust right.

23.  Going to have to come up with a new goal for this one since I’ve decided to nix the book project.  Ballroom dancing maybe?  Hmmm….

24.  We do have another trip planned for the spring.  It can’t come soon enough!

30.  Need a new goal for this one, too, since I’m going to nix the cake decorating plans.  Another class idea?  I’d love to take photography class but I’d have to get a decent camera first…

31.  We are almost there with the living room, front room and entertainment center remodels!

36.  Need a new goal since I feel called away from PPD  ministry…

37.  We took the kids for swimming lessons at the local university swim center and they loved, loved, loved it.  We’ll probably do it again either in the spring or summer.

54.  I did attend a Deeper Still conference, but unfortunately had to leave early due to a severe migraine.  *sigh*  Oh, well.

56.  We took the kids to see Dora the Explorer Live!  It’s a musical – so, hey, it qualifies!  :)

78.  We’ve gone on a couple more date nights.  Yea!

Any ideas for those new goals I need?

Going For 101 in 1001

“Swine flu girl.”

That was the phrase I heard loud and clear outside our examining room door while we were waiting on the results of the flu swab for S last night at her pediatrician’s office.

Hmmmm, must be us.  S did have the symptoms, but it was also crowded so it could’ve been anyone.

It sure was us.  S started with a cough yesterday or the day before and yesterday afternoon was down and out so fast – within fifteen minutes – with a fever of 103.6.  My super active child was on the couch with her stuffed monkey companion either asleep or whining or cold or wanting in my lap.  Poor baby.

Did I mention how brutal that swab is for a 2 year old girl?  No fun.  I’d rather hold her down for a shot than for liquid then a cotton swab up the nose.  Ugh!!  Needless to say, she was less than trustful of anyone who entered the room after that.  The PA was super sweet and so good with her.  She convinced S that Dora and Boots were hiding in her ears and that Diego was in her mouth.  S promptly swallowed Diego.  Hilarious!

I haven’t been feeling so hot the past couple of days and woke up feeling rough this morning, so I guess it’ll be a weekend on the couch with a perpetual rerun of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

And I wonder why I keep singing about this strange, rude guy “Gaston” in my head.

She is doing great this morning – no fever yet, just a cough.  Me – barely a cough, more really achy and runny nose than anything.

You so wanted to know those details, didn’t you?

On the plus side, we’ll save money on vaccinations and then we’ll have no worries about catching it anymore.

It’s really not so bad right now for our family, but I do understand how tragic it has been a lot of people.

More later,

Nurse-Patient-Mommy Tara

Growing Up

Again, just the chapter title of Francis Chan’s Crazy Love hits the heart of the matter.  In chapter five, he examines whether calling yourself a Christian makes you a devoted follower and if there is such a thing as a “lukewarm Christian.”  Lots of food for thought.  Here is the next in my series of favorites quotes from one of my favorite books:

• The chapter is called “Serving Leftovers to a Holy God.”  Ouchy.
• God doesn’t just want us to have good theology; He wants us to know and love Him.  (As is often said, it’s all about the relationship, not the religion.)
• Matthew 28:18-20 [The Great Commission] ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in^[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Some people claim that we can be Christians without necessarily becoming disciples.  I wonder, then, why the last thing Jesus told us was to go into the world, making disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that He commanded?  You’ll notice that He didn’t add, “But hey, if that’s too much to ask, tell them to just become Christians – you know, the people who get to go to Heaven without having to commit to anything.”
• Each of us has lukewarm elements and practices in our life; therein lies the senseless, extravagant grace of it all.
• How many of us would really leave our families, our jobs, our education, our friends, our connections, our familiar surroundings, and our homes if Jesus asked us to?  If He just showed up and said, “Follow me”?  No explanation.  No direction.  When you think about His disciples in that way, well, WOW…
• Many of us believe we have as much of God as we want right now, a reasonable portion of God among all the other things in our lives….But the fact is that nothing should concern us more than our relationship with God; it’s about eternity, and nothing compares with that.

God Stuff