Thankful

 ***When I was putting this post together I must have hit "Post" rather than "save" so it posted too soon and was unfinished.  Sorry about that!  I then started updating it and it was wonderful - and then my computer decided to run updates and ALL my additions were lost.  So......here is what I had the energy to put together after all that.  Enjoy.  Or at least tell me you enjoyed.***

 

 

For November I did a "Thirty Days of Thanks" activity with Little Lady to help her to think of all of the blessings we have in our everyday life.  Here is what she came up with.

 

Little Lady is thankful for:

 

- Leaves & Trees

- Fun Activities

- Glow sticks

- Canyon

 - Our Church

- Snow

- Magazines

- Scissors

- Fire trucks

- Dolphins

- Friends and People

- God

- Kathleen

- FaceTime

- Snowball Fights

- Lattes (we froth milk for her - no caffeine)

- Story Time

- Books

- Vacuums

- Everybody (yes, that includes you)

- Cats

- Thermometers (November was a sick month)

- Santa

- Playing with James

- Birds

- Windows

- Bees

- Stamps at Wings (stamps on hands after gymnastics)

- Playing with Mika

- Santa (you can apparently never be too thankful for this guy)

 

 

 

We enjoyed Thanksgiving at home and had some friends over to join us.  I did lots of cooking, hoping for lots of leftovers so I would have to do no cooking for several days.  I also had to do some searching for paleo options to certain staples.  This was our first paleo Thanksgiving.

 

 

This was an easy one. An apple cranberry sauce.  I got the recipe from a "Paleo Comfort Foods" cookbook I have.  I made a large double batch and stuck half in the freezer for later.

 

 

I had to take it right back out a day later because this Little Guy LOVED it.  I don't think it even lasted a week.

 

 

We roasted a big old 23lb turkey - brining it overnight, of course.  I still used the same simple recipe from the year before, but used grass fed butter.  Admittedly, this was a splurge.  We don't normally do butter.  I've used olive oil too and that would work just fine.  This was the turkey that just kept giving.  So many meals.

 

 

The stuffing was the tricky one.  I was going to use the family recipe, just paleoized, but I didn't want to risk something untested when we were having company.  I ended up making Against All Grain's Thanksgiving Stuffing recipe, substituting Elana's Pantry Paleo Bread for the bread.  It's a keeper.  I will admit I think I went too heavy with the salt, but I honestly didn't measure it - just tossed it in.  Next time I'll measure.  Especially with the brined bird, the whole meal was a bit salt heavy - at least to me.

 

Our friends brought an amazing potato dish and were so thoughtful to make it paleo.  They really didn't need to, but they wanted to and that is awesome.  They also brought some homemade rolls that I knew Little Lady would love.  We got to keep some of those too and Little Lady would talk about how Karen (our friend) had the best rolls and butter ever!  Yup, we're apparently carb starving the girl.

 

Now let's get to the desserts.

 

I made Paleomg's Eggnog Pumpkin Pie.  My crust blackened. Probably wouldn't bother making again, but it was okay.

 

 

These.  These will be made again. And again.  This is Pumpkin Pie Bars from PaleOMG.  Made an excellent breakfast the next day too.

 

Overall, everything was great and we were very happy to have friends join us.  They have a three year old son and Little Lady was THRILLED to have him over.

The next night we went to a Christmas Tree lighting Downtown.

 

 

It was pretty chilly so we had to bundle up.

 

I have dreams of someday going house to house caroling with people like this.  I don't know that I would dress up, but I'd like to see them doing that.

 

Papa had a week off between Thanksgiving and his finals.  She was VERY happy to have him hanging out with us.

 

It is always a tough adjustment when he has school breaks.  I'm used to doing EVERYTHING myself and I have my methods and reasons.  He wants to help, but he doesn't know my methods or my reasons and it can be a tough couple days at first.  He also has to learn the best ways to deal with the kids - we have to learn to live together again.  We're there now, and I'm so happy to have a partner again - even if only for a couple weeks - but it can be a really tough couple days to start with.

 

This year I figured Little Lady was ready for some Advent stuff, so I got some stuff to make an activity calendar.  My sister sent me a really neat idea and I went with it.

 

It actually ended up working out great that all the sales were happening.

 

This was the final product.  Each card has a little sticky note with an activity on the back.

 

We had done a last minute trip to the grocery store the night before Thanksgiving and saw an unexpected visitor there.

 

 

We suspect Mrs. Claus was having him pick up some items on his way home from dropping off some elves because....

 

Xavier showed up on the first day of Advent.

 

Our first activity was to set up our nativity scene.

 

This crazy guy seems to know what our activities will be because he does crazy stuff like this.  We were making snowflakes, but it looks like he made some of his own too.

 

She is very excited about all of this.  Especially when the activity involves something like hot cocoa and marshmallows.

 

So much fun!