We went to a going away party for a good friend of ours who is joining the Marine Corps on the 8th of December. While we knew this would surely happen sooner or later, we had no idea it was going to be so soon. Once we learned of the sad event, (and the party) we thought it was our duty to write a song for it. Since we came up with one just a few days before New Years last year, we didn't think it would be too much of a problem, and yes, we decided to incorporate the sister of the Marine, who happens to live some distance from our home. But, as they were coming over for Thanksgiving, we decided to practice then, without him finding out, of course. :)

Lyrics were finished the day before Thanksgiving, practice went smoothly, all we needed to do was get it memorized and not laugh. :) Since we don't have the video from a "real" camera, here is a sneak preview from a not-so-real camera (I'll get the better version up as soon as I get it!). :) (Oh, and the batteries were quite low, so the not-so-real camera actually shut down in the middle of the song...sorry. :))

Part 1


Part 2


And Jessica uploaded all of the photos from the event here!

Thanksgiving has come once more, and as usual, passed by much too quickly. Yesterday was overflowing with reasons to be thankful and was so inspiring to live life to it's fullest, never wasting one precious moment. We had two families over to share in our feast, and shortly following, some more friends arrived for dessert. We had a fabulous time cooking some of our traditional Thanksgiving favorites, such as our Cajun Dressing (a recipe that goes back a few generations in my mom's family), Cranberry Sauce, Wassail, Turkey with gravy (but that goes without saying ;)) and Sweet Potato Casserole.

This time around, we decided to make this Thanksgiving memorable...soooooo, we caught the Sweet Potato Casserole on fire, in the oven (yes there is a photo below)! The men were able to successfully place a cookie sheet over the top and before long, the fire was out, the excitement was over (well, that bit of it, anyway) and dinner was served! Okay, so I'll stop rambling now and let the pictures speak for themselves...

Here stands mom, on the day before Thanksgiving, trying to decide what she's going to put in her pralines. :)

This year was Melissa's year to dress the turkey. Here she is, thoroughly disgusted with that turkey neck...but, honestly, I don't blame her.

Mother's unbeatable Pralines...scrumptious!

The first roasted turkey.

Sugar coated cranberries...they almost look like a centerpiece.

It has been an unchallengeable American doctrine that cranberry sauce, a pink goo with overtones of sugared tomatoes, is a delectable necessity of the Thanksgiving board and that turkey is uneatable without it. ~Alistair Cooke

So, you see my dear friends, who also happened to be partakers in our feast yesterday (You know who you are... ;)) you can eat turkey with cranberry sauce poured over it...especially when it's warm and homemade. :)

Melissa with her finished place cards...she looks pretty satisfied to me.

Mother and daughter.

Singing our traditional song, "Five Kernels of Corn."

William had a place set for him at a different table, but he insisted on sitting with Peter.

Sisters.

My sisters.

Oh yes, and here is the little bit of evidence that we caught the sweet potato casseroles on fire just as we were getting ready to eat! They wouldn't open the oven again for me to get a "better" picture, so this will have to suffice. :)

Now, I was told that the burned marshmallows were quite tasty...I'm not too keen on S'mores, nor marshmallows, so I didn't take the adventurous route and try them.

D1 racing to the food line.

One of the tables of hungry friends.

Dad and his Turkey Carving Class of '08! If you'd like to register for next year, sign on the dotted line... :)

Mom surveying the carving of the main dish...probably thinking of how good it will taste smothered in cranberry sauce (yup, that was just for y'all...again, you know who you are. ;)).

Ahhh...such a beautiful sight that comes but once a year.

Little girls.

Auntie Em and her leaf.

The dessert table. I believe there were well over a dozen pies...and then there were the pralines!

Another GF Apple Pie. This time without the caramel, but it did get some leaves.

A close-up of our place cards. A tradition that's been carried down through the years.

The table is set.

O Lord that lends me life,

Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.

~William Shakespeare

Jessica named the turkey Theodore Roosevelt.

The finished pumpkin pie.

More leaves.

William is looking awfully sneaky. :)

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

After eating for some time, I looked down at my plate which contained a few more bites of mashed potatoes, a wee bit of cranberry sauce and one sliver of turkey. I said something about being full, whereupon my dear friend, Melinda said, "Make your plate happy!" So, taking her advice, I did.

Today we began baking for our Thanksgiving feast, so I thought I'd give y'all a little peak of our menu. After making the pie crusts for all the pies we'll be baking, I thought Abigail would be thrilled to make a pie of her own. Due to food allergies, she usually doesn't get to participate in many desserts, so using spelt in place of the flour, we threw together a Carmel Apple Pie, complete with a fancy crust. Needless to say, she was ecstatic with the result, so we thought we'd share some pictures!

A random shot of the apple.

Abigail and her nifty apple peeler.

Measuring the cinnamon.

When the caramel was finally done (poor Abigail thought it would never finish! :)) we poured it over the apples, decorated the top and it was ready to bake.

Waiting ever so patiently.

A random shot of the Buttermilk Chess pies from earlier today.

Leaf detail.

The finished product. Though I'm not a huge Apple Pie fan (I know...the traditional All-American pie...but it's never been a favorite) the smell is unbeatable! Scratch and sniff stickers anybody? ;)

My friend Melissa tagged me a while back to write six random things about me and I know it's terrible that I'm just getting to it...and I'm not going to make any excuses for it, either. :)  Soooo...I sat down and thought really hard to find something about me that wasn't random and how could I point out the most random things about me...so I thought up six of them and here they are:

1. I'm really, really bad about emailing people back or keeping in touch

2. I'm rather spontaneous and almost always thinking of/doing things at the last minute...beware, it rubs off on people. :) 

3. I remember faces, and the names that go with them, numbers and publishing companies that we had accounts with...as well as where they're located.

4. I would love to own a yacht that doubles as a submarine.

5. 98% of the movies I watch are costumes dramas and I have a bad habit of recreating the outfits I like from them.

6. When we lived in Texas, my sisters and I went caroling in August.

Now, since tag is such a fun game, I tag the following people:

Elissa

Raquel

Ben H.

My Brother-in-law (Christa, be sure to tell him he's officially tagged *wicked laugh* :))

Tricia Ann Lingo

Jennifer Sanford

Well, we've made it a tradition to take a picture of Caleb jumping over the leaf pile that we find the need to rake every year. So I decided to post the pictures from the last few years...

2006

2007

The rest are from this year...I just couldn't decide which one I liked the best...votes, anybody? :)

Take 2

Take 3

Take 4

William thought he was pretty impressive and insisted that I get a picture of him tackling the leaf pile. :)

Once upon a time something tragic happened. Here is the tale...

We walked out the back door. We all got into the van, Dad, Mom, Melissa, Emma, William and myself. We drove down the gravel road waving farewell to those left behind. We went down our hill and into the little town where our post office is. We walked in to the building where the booths were, rambling off our names, one by one. They passed out white sheets of paper, one by one to each member of my family (minus William and Emma, of course) but they seemed to have forgotten mine.

We asked them if they had a slip for me, and the kind lady looked again, but came up with nothing. She then proceeded to look in the big black book, but my name was not listed. We called the courthouse, and I talked with another kind lady there, hoping she had my name somewhere. She put me on hold (could this be a good thing, I wondered) and then came back on the line to say, "I'm sorry, it doesn't look like we got your registration information from the DPS, (or was it the DMV or DLP...I've only been able to remember the name of the place in Houston...oh, back to my story). You won't be able to vote today." After that, the conversation was rather short as there was nothing more to say. Handing the bright red phone back to the first kind lady, she told me that I wasn't this first person this had happened to today. Everybody had a cute sticker that says, "I voted!" and I didn't get one...even William and Emma got one.

We loaded back into the van, went back up the hill and drove back down the gravel road, waving hello to those raking in the yard. We all walked into the house from the back door and the day moved on.

Thus ends a much abbreviated story...I hope you didn't shed too many tears whilst reading it.

Well, we had a lovely foggy morning today, and as I'm quite the fan of foggy mornings, I made the most of it and took William out for a walk and to get pictures. I've posted some below and some more here.

Our neighbor's gazebo.

Sunshine literally pouring through the trees.

Haha...last time it was foggy I took a picture very similar to this one...it's right here.

Misty fields...kind of looks like a field before a battle.

The clouds are in the corn and they won't come out...cheezy, I know...but I just couldn't resist! :)

My little man...displaying his new Charlie Brown vest. Hopefully I'll get the little girl's skirts made before Thanksgiving.

So serene.

On our way home, we walked back down this road and I was so awestruck to see God's handiwork displayed in so many ways and with such an array of colors.

And yes, our chickens have FINALLY decided to lay eggs! :)