Thanksgiving

I'd been meaning to write a Thanksgiving blog for quite some now.  Now that I've sat down to write it I realized that I only have a few pictures and they all involve food and not people.  What fun is that? But I can't let my 13 readers down.

R and I hosted my parents and my brother for Thanksgiving this year.  And by hosted my parents only had to bring homemade chicken and noodle (no one makes 'em better than my mom!), green beans and chocolate pie.  R and I had the rest covered.  I loved it.  I made no less that 47 lists, printed all my recipes, only made 2 trips to the grocery store and couldn't wait to get to cooking!

Our Thanksgiving menu pretty much consisted of recipes from The Pioneer Woman.  Have you checked out her blog?  If not, get over there right now...well, after you read this post! R was dying to smoke a turkey and we got a brining recipe from my BFF P-Dub.

 If you learn nothing else from me, learn this.  Brine your turkey people.  It will change your life! The turkey was so juicy and so delicious!  R really outdid himself with the turkey!

We had a buffet of delicious foods including turkey, ham, stuffing, yeast rolls, roasted carrots and I even made gravy for the first time.  Like from scratch, not a package! (patting myself on the back)

I made the most scrumptious apple pie ever.  I died and went to heaven when I ate this pie.  Then I came back to life and realized how much there is to clean up when you host Thanksgiving.  Let's not talk about that though.

My table setting was simple and easy peasy.  Just a couple mason jars wrapped with twine & leaves tied to them.

I got the idea for the mason jars from a blog I read, I wish I could remember what blog it was.  The filler is Epsom Salt.  Who knew Epsom Salt could be an inexpensive filler! I grabbed some batter operated tea lights at Wal-Mart. I even made my napkins have a pocket!  So fancy at the Casa de Morris!

Thanksgiving is a time to remember what we have and what we are thankful for.  Although I'm a little late to express what I'm thankful for, it's better late than never. First and foremost I'm thankful for God's amazing grace and salvation.  He has given me a life that I could never have the words to thank Him for.  I'm thankful for my beautiful, funny, silly, strong-willed little princess.  I'm thankful for my supportive, loving, amazingly awesome daddy to our little girl, husband.  I could not have better parents or friends.  I am thankful for all God's blessings and though at times I lose sight of what those blessing are, they are around me constantly.  How could I forget?

Life has changed with a little one around and holiday's like Thanksgiving take on a whole new meaning.  I'm so glad that I was able to spend such a special day with my family. 

I hope that we all find something to be thankful for everyday!

More adventures to come!

Baking Brownies

For Heaven's Sake!  I blink and all of a sudden it's been a month since I blogged.  Oops!  Time to catch up on what's been going on around our parts.

Avery had a Thanksgiving party at her Children's Day Out program and I was signed up to bring brownies.  Avery and I got to work in the kitchen.

Avery LOVES to help cook.  I try to let her do as much as she can by herself.

We may or may not have had to fish out egg shell.  Don't tell her classmates!

Avery is such a big helper!

Next week I'm going to let her bake a cake unsupervised.  She's old enough.

The hard part was finding the perfect cookie cutter shape.  We didn't want boring, ol' square brownies.  They had to be symbolic of Thanksgiving.  So many choices! Like 100 choices. Seriously.  100 cookie cutters!

 
I had some parameters.  I had to have a certain number of brownies so a lot of the more Thanksgiving type cutters were a little too big.  We went with the heart.  It made the cutest little brownies!

And a few scraps left to, um...share. 

Avery was so proud of herself!  I was so proud of her too.  It was a great way to start the Thanksgiving holiday!

More adventures to come!

The Anti-TV night

So not too long ago, Avery was begging to watch Mickey Mouse for the umteenth time.  I was feeling the mommy-guilt for letting Avery watch TV (something I swore I'd never do until she was at least 10) and was looking for something else to do to keep us occupied until it was time for our bedtime ritual. Some days I'm super mom and think of awesome things to do, other times all my brain power was sucked out at work and I've got nothing. Tonight was one of those night.  I had just about succombed the the cries for Mickey Mouse.

Enter these cars.

We got that giraffe car at a baby store in Dallas.  It's pretty cool because it's fuzzy and rubbery.  It has a brother, an orange monkey, but it's been living at our church nursery for some time now.  We may never see it again.

Anyway, I pulled out these cars and we started racing them.  Broozer thought it would be fun to be tortured get in on the action so he joined us.  Who knew that such basic little toys could be so fun?



It was so nice to turn the TV off and turn the record player on.  I'm sure we had something awesome like the Beatles or She & Him on the stereo.  Nothing like some good old fashion music and toys to make you thankful for the little things!

Never a dull moment

There's really never a dull moment when you have a child.  Or at least not when you have our child.

Example:
The other day as I was just about to doze off for a much deserved nap, R comes to me a says "Come here. I have to show you something."
Now then, I have to admit, I wasn't real happy about having to get up. He led me to the kitchen only to see my car keys stuck in an electrical outlet.  Yep.  Avery had stuck one of my keys in the electrical out.

Parent of the year awards being handed out over at our house.

Every morning when Avery gets out of bed her first words are "I want to be a Pwincess." I'm not lying. Every. single. morning.

Avery practically refuses to wear pants. When we went on vacation, Avery wore the same denim skirt 3 times and the same dress twice.

Avery has an aversion to shirts that aren't pink.  Thankfully, it's not as strong as her aversion to pants.

Avery has her own opinion about what shoes to wear.  Tennis shoes?  Forget it.  The new pink Converse shoes I bought? Don't even try to put those on her feet.  Shoes must be "beautiful" and "sparkly". 

Avery get sweaty in the car and must have every vent pointed at her full blast.
So, you see, there's never a dull moment at our house.
I'm not sure why I was surprised when I went to check on Avery this evening after a few moments of silence to find this:

And although you can see R in the background of that last picture, that was AFTER we found that she had climbed up on the bathroom vanity and was gazing at herself in her "princess" dress.

I know why she was up there.  Most mornings that we dress Avery at home (on the weekdays she gets dressed at my cousins house) R takes Avery into the bathroom, sets her on the vanity, and they gaze upon her beauty. He tells her how pretty she is and she basically agrees. When she puts on a princess dress, she will sway her hips back and forth, smooth down the front and say "I a pwincess mommy." Normally R will do their routine and go to the bathroom and let Avery look at herself. 

Not tonight. There was no time for gazing on Avery's beauty.  Dinner needed to be cooked.  This momma was hungry!

Not a problem for Avery. She took matters into her own hands.

I'm extremely slightly concerned for what this may mean for the future.  Help me!

More adventures to come!

Halloween

Halloween was especially fun this year.  As I keep saying, Avery is to the age when she "gets" stuff.  And this year, she "got" that she was going to get to dress up.  We let her decide what she wanted to be for Halloween with a little bit of parental leading.

Me: Avery, don't you want to be Minnie Mouse for Halloween?
A: Yes! Minnie Mouse!
Me: What do you want to be for Halloween?
A: Minnie Mouse!

See how that works?

Trickery. We picked up Avery's costume at a huge children's consignment sale.  I love the JBF Sale.  But that is a whole other post.  As R and I were looking at costumes I asked Avery again what she wanted to be for Halloween.
A: Pink Pwincess
What happened to my trickery?!
Me: What? Minnie Mouse?
A: No, mommy. Pink Pwincess.

I'm not going to lie. I had a moment of panic.  I spotted the pink Minnie Mouse dress and ears and showed it to Avery.  She was sold! 
A: Pwincess Minnie!

That my friends is how this parenting thing is done!

Our Halloween festivities started with a Halloween party at Avery's Children's Day Out program.  It was a little chilly and I had picked up this faux fur shawl that worked perfectly for my little Minnie Mouse!

There just happened to be 3 Minnie's in Avery's class that day.  I knew I wasn't winning any awards for creativity or originality but I knew Avery would LOVE being Minnie so it worked!

R: Avery, how many Minnie's were there in your class?
A: Twee (Three)
R: Who was the prettiest.
A: Me!
Hmmm, she hasn't heard that too much huh?

On Halloween, Avery asked to wear her costume about every 5 seconds.  The girl could have lived in that thing!

Halloween Decorating

We don't decorate much for Halloween around our house.  I always have big plans to decorate for the holidays but then life happens and all of a sudden it's a week before Halloween and we've barely purchased a pumpkin.  Although, this year, R had pumpkins purchased ready to be carved in plenty of time.

However, on a shopping trip to Target (imagine that!) we picked up some of those clingy things you stick on the door.  We thought Avery would enjoy decorating the front door.

$1 at Target.  Yep.  That's why I heart that place.

Pumpkin Patch

 Last weekend (my birthday weekend) we went to the Pumpkin Patch.  We decided to go to Chesters Party Barn.  We had wantedto go the the Barn on Friday but Mother Nature decided to send a rain storm so we had to change plans and go on Saturday.  I'm not going to lie-I may have had a small tantrum when I woke up on Friday and it was raining.  Apparently Avery woke up on the wrong side of the bed too because she was a little cranky Friday.  It was probably best we waited until Saturday. AND we got to talk up riding a pony.  Avery couldn't wait! 

 Avery LOVED the ponies!

 She wasn't scared one bit of getting on the ponies.

 In fact, she even gave it a few "Yee haws"! 

Next up was the Petting Zoo. We bought a bucket of food and went to town.  Again, Avery wasn't scared one bit of sticking her hands out with food to hungry animals.

R got in on the action to feed a cow.  The cow's tongue was huge!  I think R may be related!

 There wasnt' a hay ride but there was a tractor ride. That basically took you to this huge slide.  We did have to trek though a muddy maze but we finally made it!

 Avery couldn't wait to go down the slide.  Again, not scare one bit!

 This picture cracks me up. It looks like she is about to face plant in the mud but she didn't!  She stayed on her feet!  She's got ninja-like balance like her dad!  I have the balance of a pogo stick.  Pogo stick balance=not good.  Ninja balance=excellent!
We even caught a glimpse of this guy.  Pretty cool at a distance.  Not cool up close.

 Finally we got to the pumpkin picking!  About this time the wind picked up and the temperature dropped a little.  Rain was in the air.  Avery was taking her time.

 "This pumpkin is heaby!"

Finally!  A pumpkin.

Avery is in the stage that everything is an adventure and fun.  She's not too cool to do anything and we can really talk up an activity like riding a pony, and she can't wait to do them! It's so fun to see things through her eyes. I can't hardly stand it!

There's so much more to come and I can't wait!

More adventures to come!