Thanksgiving Weekend Recap

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine had its ups and down, as expected, but we got through it. On Wednesday I met up with my brother to pick up Jacqueline and James. The rest of the family couldn't get away this year, so I was extra happy to have these two with us. (Pardon my shitty selfie skills.)

And Jackie gave me my traditional birthday portrait:

Thanksgiving Eve a/k/a the best Gwensday of the year always brings neighbors and friends to the house, and this year we also had Aaron's sister Stephanie and her family.

Julia (with Steph and Aaron) gets in on the brine injection.
Jackie making green bean casserole.
Julia and Kate are ready to go back to the hotel for some swimming.

On Thanksgiving we had 19 at the table (actually, tableS), including some friends who otherwise would have been home alone. We did two turkeys in the oil-less deep fryer and they were yumptious.

Turkey #1 cooling off. Fortunately no critters came by.
As far as we know.

Kate, Lauren and Julia

The tradition of raiding Aunt Gila's "shoe room" continues.

Friday was super chill. Aaron put the kids to work putting up our ceiling ornaments. James wanted deep dish pizza for dinner so we went out and had this deliciousness:

Lasagna pizza from Fabian's

Saturday I met up with my brother again to drop off the kids (I say "kids" even though Jackie is 21 and James at 15 kept declaring himself to be a "grown man.") On my way home I engaged in some retail therapy and even bought a couple Christmas gifts. Then I went to Jen and Jason's house for football and Friendsgiving (no turkey; they did barbecue).

I can't even believe it's December already. Crazy!

Thanksgiving Windup

Happy Post-Thanksgiving, in which it's perfectly acceptable to eat leftover pie for breakfast. Actually, I think it's perfectly acceptable anytime but we don't have pie around the house very often. I hope you all had a great holiday weekend. We kicked ours off with Gwensday/Thanksgiving Eve festivities at our house. There's even photographic evidence of me in the kitchen.

Making Chex Mix (also acceptable for breakfast since, you know, it's cereal)

We hosted on Thanksgiving Day; there were 16 of us, including members of both our families and some friends (framily) as well. Enter obligatory food pictures.

Besides the obvious: amazing squash soup made by our niece Jackie; the stuffing had bacon and apples in it; sauteed carrots and onions are a favorite at our dinner.

We also make the kids pose for pictures. I'll have more, but here's one from my phone of my mom and her grandchildren.

Here's the best story of our Thanksgiving. A guy showed up at our door and said that he's a baker and that earlier he stopped by and took some rosemary from the community garden and to say thanks he brought us a loaf of bread. I was so stunned and I managed to say thank you and Happy Thanksgiving but I should have gotten more information or asked him to come inside or something. So if anyone knows a guy named Matt who's a baker and has a beard (or did on Thursday), let me know.

I hope you get an idea of how big this loaf of bread was, and it was fantastically delicious!

Friday we went over to my mom's to hang out with her and the kids and her cat Coco, who was a stray in our neighborhood that my mom adopted last winter.

Saturday involved lots of football watching and a neighborhood Friendsgiving at Jen and Jason's house.

One of the fun cocktail napkins of the day; the boys played football, but Amy's comment was "it's no Kennedy compound game."

Sunday was church, singing, napping ... even though Gato and Clover tried to block my couch time.

Now it's time to get some work done and perhaps some cyber-Monday shopping!

The Best Gwensday of the Year

Happy Thanksgiving Eve a/k/a my favorite Gwensday! I'm sure you're all sick of me referencing my birthday, but too bad because I'm going to do it again. A couple years ago my birthday was on Thanksgiving Eve and I posted about it here, along with some stories of birthdays and Thanksgivings past. (Don't dump all the potato water! Or, if you're me, do it and just don't care.)

Last night I walked a block to Little Rock Bar for karaoke night. Kat couldn't go but I decided to go by myself, and while the place was busy, none of the usual Tuesday night regulars were there. But I hung out for a while and sang and met some new people. It helps that I go there often enough that the karaoke dude and the bartenders and the owner all know me.

This must have been there Saturday too, but I didn't see it until last night.

Here's a playlist of the songs I did last night. "Glitter in the Air" and "Killing Me Softly" are favorites of mine, but the other two I had never sung before. What the hell, I didn't know most of the people there anyway!




We had snow yesterday and I couldn't resist taking this picture of our poor grasses in front of the house on my way home:

Aaron was fast asleep when I got home and the cats were pretty settled in, although I didn't see Bella at first. But then I found her snuggled in a pile of laundry:

She really got herself in there! 

And maybe she's not as airheaded as we thought - this morning Aaron realized that our heat wasn't on and it was only 58 degrees in the house!

And so as I write this, I'm in front of the fire and here's my view outside:

In case you can't tell, it's snowing. Sideways.

I hope everyone celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow has a wonderful holiday. Safe travels to all! We're hosting and the house already smells so good (no thanks to me - Aaron does almost all of the cooking).

Nieces and Nephews

I've been participating in "30 Days of Thanksgiving" on Facebook, but today's thankful post deserves more space so I'm writing it here. Today I'm thankful for our four nieces and two nephews. Here they are, along with some of my favorite pictures of them:


Jacqueline Marie is a sophomore in college studying animation. She's talented, my shopping buddy, her smile is amazing, and I want her to be my personal makeup artist.

Jeremy Michael is a high school junior. He's the middle child, the peacemaker, the one who asks questions like "what if the sky was purple?" He is currently on the high school wrestling team.

James Matthew is in 8th grade and he's the comedian in the family, always coming up with "James-isms." He plays basketball and is trying out for wrestling. He has eyelashes to die for, and I love his hair.

Lauren Reay is in 7th grade. She's musical, athletic and beautiful. She won her conference championship in cross country and also plays basketball and softball.

Julia Lynn is in 2nd grade and she's our little princess. She's also really smart and she's pretty good on the soccer field.

Kathleen Anne (Kate) is four years old. She's a fierce soccer player, she loves Dora and Santa, and she has the cutest dimples.

When the kids come to visit there are two things that always happen: our M&Ms supply decreases, and we get a fashion show of my shoes. This year Lauren actually fits in my shoes, and I gave Jacqueline two pairs of my boots.

Every other Thanksgiving we are fortunate enough to have all the nieces and nephews with us so I make them get a picture taken all together. Jeremy wasn't with us this year due to wrestling, but here are some of the Thanksgivings past:

I love you guys and I'm so proud to be your Aunt Gwen/Aunt Gila (and I know Aaron/Uncle Boo feels the same).

The Trifecta of Fabulousness

I love Thanksgiving for many reasons, including the fact that I was born on Thanksgiving Day. Growing up, I didn't often appreciate that because I was rarely in school for my birthday, and all my friends were off doing their Thanksgiving stuff and it didn't seem like I really got to celebrate. Now I think it's kinda cool, and this year November 23rd is 1) my birthday; 2) Gwensday, the best day of the week that's not a weekend day; and 3) Thanksgiving Eve. Here are some tales about Thanksgivings/Birthdays Past:

When I was born, the story goes, my dad (an avid hunter) convinced the hospital to keep my mom and me there an extra day so he could go out and try to shoot Bambi. Try doing THAT in the age of insurance anarchy. He told that story at our wedding, though not quite as crassly as I just did.

Dad and me

My 21st birthday fell on Thanksgiving Eve. I had finals but my mom picked me up from college and drove me home so I could celebrate with my friends Kim and Cathy. My dad took us out to Duffy's Tavern for my first "official" drink, then he dropped us off in town and we walked all over creation, finally ending up at my house. I seem to recall falling out of the Shelby and tearing my jeans, having a hard time unlocking the door to the house, and Cathy hugging my dog while she sat in front of the toilet. Ah, good times.



Lucky for Cathy, I couldn't find the picture of her with Sugar, but here's the dog.

When Aaron and I got married our parents decided that we should host Thanksgiving dinner, which has worked out pretty well for us. Both sets of parents come to our house, so there's no discussion about whose family "gets us." Over the years, our siblings have gotten married and have families of their own so they're not with us every year, but our niece and two nephews are traditionally with us every single year, which I absolutely love.

All six of the nieces and nephews

I think it was our first Thanksgiving that sparked the great potato water debate. We had boiled the potatoes for mashing and I then drained them, pouring all the water down the sink. My mother and mother-in-law acted like I had done some criminal act because of COURSE I was supposed to save some of the water to make gravy. Now, everyone knows that I'm not the cook in my family, but I swear to this day that I never remember that even from my growing up years. And the next year... I did it again. From then on I stopped touching the potatoes.

For the love of all that is holy, don't drain all the water.

Last year's Thanksgiving was pretty great. We had almost all our family there as well as our neighbors Christin and Martin. Our niece Kate was baptized by my dad right there in our house, and as it turned out, that was my dad's last official act.

Aaron and I are proud to be Kate's godparents.

This year we're changing things up a bit. Being the first holiday without my dad, we wanted to make it a little different so we're going out to Buca di Beppo for our Thanksgiving meal (and yes, they're doing a traditional feast as well as their full menu). We'll probably eventually go back to having it at our house, but I think it will be a fun switch.

And on Thanksgiving Eve, I celebrated my Gwensday birthday with neighbors and friends. Colin made a pumpkin pie pudding shot in my honor:

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Gila