We had a wonderful time with family, the food was delicious, and I have never been so organized as I was this Thanksgiving. Making the pies and a few other key items the day before made the biggest difference. Although this also gave a certain little monkey boy named Finn the opportunity to sneak into the fridge and taste test a few of the pies as well as mangle a few crusts along the way. I just served around his little handprint. Such a little punk.

This is all that is left of the desserts.

No worries though, Finn is ready to help me dispose of any leftover desserts. And he doesn’t even need a spoon. What a little helper.

I was especially excited to use my beautiful set of turkey dishes this year, which looked even better when combined with my set of white holiday dishes . And lets not forget my dollar store glass goblets. They look nice, they go with everything, and if one breaks, no loss since I only paid $1. Total happiness.

I had ambitious intentions when I bought this fabric and ribbon, wanting to stitch up some lovely cloth napkins for my table, but alas I ran out of time. Maybe next year?

And here is my little punk Finn again. Wearing a laundry hamper. This is a constant form of entertainment at our house. My kids are weird.

So anyways, we had a lovely day with family, the food was delicious thanks to everyone and their tasty contributions, and there was lots of talking and laughing which is always so much fun regardless. And the only leftovers we have is a bowl of cranberry sauce, which will be gone by this evening since I have a ‘cranberry chicken’ recipe at the ready to take care of that minor detail. Hope everyone had a lovely day!

Of course it wouldn’t be the holidays unless I went completely overboard with my baking, and so of course I have spent all day (and happily I might add) baking my heart out in my kitchen. Today I was able to make…

Cherry Cranberry Sauce

Ruby Red Layered Jello

Maple Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin pie

4 mini pumpkin pies

1 mini pecan pie

2 mini apple pies

 Cranberry Pecan Pie

Apple pie

Sweet Potato Pie

pound cake

a cheeseball

and the glazed yams

The glazed yams were only partially cooked, and now I only need to sprinkle the pecan topping over them and pop them in the oven for 20 minutes  and they are ready to serve. Which is awesome since this is what I have to make for the rest of the dinner tomorrow…

mashed potatoes

 sparkling grape juice

creamed spinach

green beans amadine

glazed baby carrots

succotash

and 2 pans of Rhodes rolls.

I am loving every minute of it, believe me. Is doesn’t get any more fun than this. And if you are coming to my house, then come hungry since there will be no shortage of food, I can assure you. Hope you like pie.

I am so very thankful. Life is good and I feel so very blessed. I am surrounded by so many loved ones and incredible people. Thank you for all that you do, and know just how thankful I am that I am lucky enough to have all of you in my life, and to know you. Wishing you a very happy and wonderful fun filled day.

My blog will be undergoing some changes over the next little while, so please be patient. There may be a few ups and downs throughout the whole process, but the end result will definitely be worth it.

p.s. Chris, you rock.

When I was about 8 or 9, my Mom dropped the three of us off, me and two of my brothers Rob and Scott at the base theater for the kid’s Saturday matinee. They were showing “Nutcracker Fantasy”, which seemed harmless enough by the title and pictures on the movie poster. Of course then there wasn’t much of a way to really find out much about a movie unless it was through word of mouth or a review written in the paper as there was no internet, but like I said, the pictures on the movie poster looked like a fun kids film. My poor mother had no idea that this movie was going to scare the heck out of us. And boy did it ever. I remember hating every minute of that movie and wishing I had never come there. It was so darn scary. Seriously, it took me years before I could go to sleep without worrying about “the Ragman” peering into my window to find we awake late at night so he could zap me into a mouse and take me away in his bag of rags. So imagine my surprise when I find this clip on You Tube with the first few minutes of the movie. And Heidi, I think that this is the perfect opportunity for liberal usage of the word “sissy”.

Well, this is it. This is the cut. And it has almost completely healed, with only a bit of redness and a tiny little bit of a scab. Sorry, I know, scab is kind of a gross word, but it was all I could think of. Anyways, I have total use and functionality of my hand and can use it pretty much as I normally would, with only a tiny twinge here and there depending on how I twist it. But I can’t grip things with full strength, I can’t lean on my hand and put any large degree of weight on it without it really hurting, I have a weaker grasp than before, and there is tenderness in some areas of my palm and upper wrist when pressure is placed on it, but my hand feels totally normal. In fact I have forgotten many times that I even have a healing hand much of the time, it has been very easy to forget which is so odd to me, but good nonetheless. Turning doorknobs is not as mindless as it once was and neither is opening jars and twisting things open, but none of it is painful either. My grip is just not what is used to be, but I am working on it and every day I notice that I have more and more strength than before. Again, no regrets. And I know, you’re wondering why there was so much bandaging after the surgery, all for the sake of that one little cut. I have no idea.

I took Gracen to get her haircut Saturday morning, and the stylist was able to work miracles with the odd and choppy pieces of hair that had been hacked on the right side of Gracen’s head.

Silly girl.

She loves her new hairstyle.

She does not however, love posing for pictures for any length of time beyond thirty seconds.

Note the exasperated and disinterested face. So ready for this picture taking nonsense to end.

And while this weekend was too busy for me to get to any of my sewing, I did manage to go a little crazy making Gracen a bunch of headbands with bows.

Ok, maybe a lot crazy. But it sure was fun making them.

In my sewing frenzy in the days leading up to my surgery, I managed to sew five nighties (in my next post…) and three twirl dresses for my little girls. They absolutely love them, and it feels so good to have them all done. I made the first two dresses with the same pink and brown polka dot and floral fabric scheme so the girls could be twinners, and the third dress was done mostly in pinks just for Gracen. She loves pink. A lot. So I came through for her as pinkly as possible. And the twirl factor? Well, let me assure you, it’s just right. And if by “right” you mean “extreme”. Oh the twirl these dresses have, it’s so. much. fun. Gracen was more than happy to demonstrate this for me when I pulled out my camera…

(these pictures were taken before Gracen gave herself a haircut)

Needless to say, there is a lot of girly twirly going on at the moment over here. All I know is that I would have killed for a dress like this when I was little. Seriously, I thought there was nothing more beautiful, or fun, than a dress with a full twirling skirt. And the skirt on these dresses is beyond a circle, they’re huge. So here is where you correctly guess that I am living vicariously through my children and their big twirly dresses. Nothing wrong with that. Now to get the other four twirly dresses cut out and sewn up.

At my follow-up appointment this morning, the Dr. cut off the bandage, removed the three stitches from my wrist and placed three Steristrips on the site of the incision. I am still sporting one last drawing courtesy of my Dr. mapping out the surgery I guess, and the skin on my hand and my wrist was also very oddly textured form the gauze being pressed into it constantly from the bandage, and it took over three hours for it to go away and my skin to regain it’s normal appearance. Weird. And happily I can now get my hand wet and go about my life using it like normal, except I am not allowed to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk for two more weeks.

Weirdly enough, once the bandage was gone, the tenderness in my hand was also gone. Not sure why that is, but oh well. I feel great and I can honestly say that for my first experience with any kind of surgery, this was a great one. My right hand is still noticably weaker than my left, but I am amazed at how quickly it is re-gaining strength. I do have to add though that when the bandage came off I found the incision site and the subsequent stitches to be kind of disturbing. I mean, there it was, evidence that someone had been purposely cutting into my skin, then sewed it back up with thread and everything. It looked so Frankenstein with the ridges and puckers where the edges of the cut were, it was kind of freaking me out a little. I know, I sound like such a baby, but it was just so beyond weird for me to look at it and think about it. Sorry, I just had to reaffirm to you what a total dork I am. So, enough of that. I am going to head over to my sewing table today or maybe tomorrow, depending on how my day goes, and see what I can work on. I was a goon and bought 6 yards of fabric the day before my surgery.

Enough to make four twirl dresses. I know, what kind of a moron does that? Like I even need to tell you.

Well, I have an appointment with my ever amazing hair stylist on Saturday morning to see what can be done with Gracen’s hair. In the meantime, I have bought any and every cute headband I could get my hands on to try and cover up and/or distract from the hack job on her head. So far it’s only kind of working. Oh well. As for my hand, I am still trying to not overdo it but I am sure most of you know just how hard that can be in reality when you are a mom. Tomorrow is the day the bandage comes off, and I can hardly wait to see what it looks underneath. I know, I am going to be so underwhelmed, but my curiosity is still piqued. Anyways, I can do a lot with my right hand already except a lot of lifting. It has no real strength, and it hurts if too much weight is put on it so, still somewhat limited. I can type at my normal speed though, except it hurts to do that for too long still, but I am happy to have my dominant hand back in action. I didn’t need any ibuprofen today whatsoever, and I’m feeling very good and thrilled with my speedy recovery. Seriously, I have no complaints about my surgery and recovery, it has been so good. I am however heartily sick of tv and the computer these days and I am literally feeling crazed with there being no way for me to do any thing I would normally do to decompress or entertain myself. No sewing, crochet, embroidery, knitting, nothing. Ugh. Sorry, I know it’s a stupid complaint (sorry to be such a whiner), but seriously, even after these few days I am really hating the very few means of entertainment available to me right now. So, are you doing anything fun and creative, because I am dying to live through you vicariously and I so want to be jealous of you right now. Seriously, jealous beyond words. So I would love to see what you’re doing, my mind is going to implode upon itself if I don’t get some more of my crafty fix on and soon.