Stuffed like a Turkey

Wow- what a weekend! It was fun and relaxing and I love four and 1/2 days of downtime.

Wednesday Steve got off work early so we hit Walmart to do some Christmas shopping. We have some very poor areas of our stake so as a stake (collection of wards) they collect toys/clothes/ect for families that may not have them for Christmas. Our ward was asked to collect toys/clothes for 3-4 year old girls. Well- that's easy to pick since that's the ages of 1/2 our kids. I wanted to have the girls pick stuff out to sort of teach them about charity at Christmas time- but I didn't want to take all four girls to the toy section of Walmart by myself. So I dragged Steve and we went and did that.

Thursday morning we got up and I started cooking pies. Now there are several essentials to Thanksgiving in my family. One of them is pies. Lots and lots of pies. Steve doesn't get it. Not many people do. But it's a time of year when you can make your 15 favorite pies and not feel (too) gluttonous. So I made 2 pumpkin, lemon meringue, key lime (don't try that recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook- really not that good), banana cream and chocolate cream. My friend emily made a cheesecake. She doesn't understand the pie thing either.

My friend Emily and her family came over for Thanksgiving as well as my sister Barbara who is currently going to school at Dixie State College in Utah. So we spent the time cooking together in the kitchen while the kids played upstairs.

Another important part of Thanksgiving are the mashed potatoes. They have to have some skin- and of course have to be real. No imitations. That was my Dad's favorite part of was mashed potatoes and gravy.

Then the turkey. I actually had some. Now this might not seem like such a big deal to the rest of you- but I've not eaten turkey in about 14 years. It gives me a major migraine and lots of pain in my back, neck and legs. But I decided to try some this year and was okay on Thanksgiving day. But I shouldn't have had leftovers. Last night I went to bed with a killer migrane and pain everywhere. It was gone by this morning though.

I brined (let it soak in a salt water solution) the turkey overnight and added brown sugar, honey and red pepper flakes to the brine. Then I rubbed it down with butter, brown sugar and sprinkled it with more red pepper before roasting it in a roaster oven breast side down. It doesn't come out with that brown crispy skin- but it comes out so moist and juicy and actually tastes good. Also in about 2 1/2 hours and my oven is free! Best $30 I've ever spent.

So Thanksgiving was good. We chatted and played some games after dinner and then the four adults (Barbara had left by then) cleaned the kitchen spotless in about 20 minutes. Woot!

Friday morning we got the girls up and took our car out in the Nevada Desert. We just drove straight up behind our house and went exploring. We stopped and had a picnic and let the girls explore and they loved it. Then Steve let them all drive a little (and there are reasons why kids don't drive- they're too easily distracted!)

When we came home I grabbed a couple bags and we dropped the girls off at Emily's house (thanks Emily and Scott!) and Steve and I headed up to Mesquite. The fun part was that Steve didn't know we were going. But we spent Friday/Saturday up there and stayed in a hotel, got massages, went to dinner, saw the new Bond movie (good except for the obnoxious kids behind us) did some Christmas shopping for our kids and test drove a mustang!

All in all it was a very good weekend. Too bad that Steve has to go back to work tomorrow and Ashley starts back to school tomorrow and we're back to the daily grind...

I'm an Aunt! (Again)

For those of you who know my sister Katie she gave birth to her third daughter last night. Mom and baby are doing great. They named her Abigail Carleen (after my BIL's mom). I'm hoping for pictures soon.

A buffet of random thoughts (I am in Vegas afterall)

1. Every room in my house was clean at some point between Friday and Sunday- except for my bedroom and the office.

2. You'd never know that by looking now
2a. What is with that?

3. My business is booming. I'm excited. Woot!

4. Does anyone else notice that when they're more busy they get more done? I know that sounds lame- of course you get more done- you're doing more. But I'm talking about besides the stuff you're busy with. I find that when I've got several projects with deadlines I'm able to get more of the other stuff done that I never seem to be able to finish- mostly because I don't have unlimited time to do them.

5. I also got the summer clothes put away and the winter clothes out this weekend- and the biggest accomplishment- all the boxes are also put away.

6. We did a dessert night on Sunday. Something I like to do about once a month. We invite 5-6 random families from church over trying to mix up people from different ages, parts of the ward (congregation) etc and I make 5-6 different desserts and we eat and chat. It's great fun for me and I hope for the people that come. So I get to try out new stuff without eating it all myself and I get to know more people in the ward.

7. Sunday we invited my visiting teaching companion (another woman that I'm assigned to and together we check up on and visit with several other women in our ward every month) and several of the families that we visit teach. My companion is in her 80's and is Japanese-Hawaiian. She is the sweetest lady ever and she adores my crazy kids. She's trying to get them to call her 'grandma nishi'. Her last name is Nishimoto.

8. Her husband has done a lot of work with the general leadership of the church in Asia. He was the regional representative of Asia and oversaw the construction of the Tokyo Temple. He was talking about his life and telling us stories from WWII (he was a colonel over the Japanese American regiment) and telling us stories about the different people he'd met working with the church. I think he mentioned maybe 5-6 different prophets (head guy in the church) that he'd worked with and knew personally. It was an amazing night. Most people left by about 9:30- but the Nishimotos stayed and chatted until 12:30.

9. I'm making the following today for baskets for school: Chocolate/caramel dipped pretzel rods, chocolate dipped pretzel twists, triple chocolate chunk peppermint cookies, snickerdoodles, tollhouse cookies, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, chocolate popcorn, two bite brownies, white chocolate Chip orange cookies and peppermint bark.

10. Pretty sure steve's office is going to be ordering regularly from me.

11. My aunt Hope made me the coolest apron. She stitched my logo on it. So fun! I'll post a picture after I find the camera cord.

12. I ordered all our Christmas jammies yesterday. Yay for oldnavy.com!

13. We are getting our kids a swingset for Christmas. Well, we're going halvsies with my mom. This one is one that I want to get. Sounds like a reasonable price for that- but after $95 shipping it's really not. So- I leave you with this challenge. Find a wooden swingset like that one- but somewhere that either has free shipping or that we can pick it up.

I broke out the Christmas music...

I generally wait until Thanksgiving day. But I was making my mixture of wassail for the season and "needed" to have a cup. Well- I couldn't have a cup without turning on some Trans-Siberian Orchestra....

It's a family favorite (my family- not Steve's- he thinks it's disgusting).

Wassail mix

2 c powdered orange drink mix (tang)

1 3 oz pckg un-sweetened lemonade (kool-aid)

1 1/2 c sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

add 2 or 3 T of mix to a cup of hot water.

Who I think should run for president in 08'

Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton.

Wouldn't that be fun? I think it'd make for the first interesting race in a long time with a candidate who I feel like I could vote for because they're a good candidate rather then because I like him better then the other guy.

Stuff I'm cooking...

For delivery Friday I have 200 peices of apple crumb cake.

For next week I've got 5 baskets to fill with goodies- I'm not sure what yet- for the teachers at school (the PTO is paying woot!).

I'm thinking chocolate popcorn for sure, maybe pumpkin bread or banana bread? Or mini muffins (pumpkin and banana). Maybe chocolate/caramel pretzels. Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, triple chocolate peppermint cookies?? I don't know. They have to be things that stack well and don't need to be refridgerated. What do you think? Suggestions?

Things that I've learned at my many doctor visits recently..

The bigger the practice and the bigger the waiting room and the more recepionists, nurses, and other staff they have means the longer the wait time and the less personal your visit will be. Also, the more information regarding your symptoms they have you write down the more times they'll ask you what those symptoms are and why you're there. The more embarrassing the symptoms? Then the louder they'll ask and in front of more people. Seriously I'm not sure why they have you fill out your medical history at all- it's not like a single person looks at it. My new response when they ask me a question I've already answered on paper? "I believe that I answered that question on #5 on page 35 of your survey, approximately 56 minutes ago while I was waiting."