Thanksgiving

We were able to go up to my parents' house Wednesday evening, spent all day Thursday with the fam, and then had to leave Friday afternoon to do a little moving before the BIG move on Saturday.

Even though we only had a couple of days with my family, we really enjoyed the time that we did have. While we waited for "Thanksgiving Dinner," my dad gathered the kids in the family room and told them some stories from some books that he's had for many, many years. I remember reading from them when I was a kid. They are stories about jungle animals that teach morals to young kids. He was able to remember quite a few of them and really entertained the kids. Here are some pictures from "story time." =)

My dad really gets into the stories with motions and character voices. He's the best! =)

Mom and I usually go all out decorating the tables for dinner, but there just wasn't time this year. We were too busy with food preparation, and that's more important to us. =) Mom did a great job substituting sugars and oils in her recipes. She made some pie crust dough for two apple pies and a mince meat pie. We usually just use the jar of mince meat to put in the pie, but it's full of stuff that is not good for us. So, Mom found a recipe that had better ingredients, and the pie turned out great! Jason worked on the crust and made leaves and berries out of the extra dough to put on top of the pie. Look how pretty!


Does anyone else like mince meat pie? I'll have to get the recipe from my mom and post it. We top it with what we call "hard sauce." We leave out the ingredient that makes it "hard." =) It's basically a confectioner's sugar frosting. We found a confectioner's sugar made from evaporated cane juice that worked perfectly. We'll definitely be repeating this recipe for Christmas.

I hope you all had a great holiday with your friends and family.