Thanksgiving 2012 Recap

Our Thanksgiving this year was pretty low-key.  Just my little family!  :)  My mom spent the day with Grandma Alice, so no turkey was to be had there, and Jay's parents had already made other arrangements since all the "kids" were going to be away.  It was actually really fun to make the entire dinner and all the other fun stuff that goes along with a Thanksgiving feast!  (I mean, who doesn't love to get up at 4 a.m. to put the turkey in?!) :)  I just did the crockpot variety, but it was delicious!  The weather was fantastic most of the day, so we were able to walk off some of our stuffing to make room for homemade pie (with a scratch crust - I was even impressed with myself!)  

The day before the feast, Ella & I set out to pick up a few holiday presents (we are ON THE BALL this year!)  We stopped by Macy's so Ella could write her postcard to Santa:

According to this postcard to Santa, she wants a baby, a bear and umm....a clock!  HA!  She couldn't think of something so she glanced up and saw this "clock" at the Santa mail station, so of course then she wanted that.

We spent some time at the park even!  Such a rare treat for the end of November!

Next up for the pre-feast?  Pie making of course!  Here's some pictures I took along the way.  The recipe was from the Better Homes & Garden November issue- check it out - the pie was delicious!  Their picture (on the cover of the issue) totally trumps mine, but I think you'll agree that the turkey pie crust cut-outs are ADORABLE!! 

I have to comment here about this above photo.  So, I don't have pie weights nor did I have a bag of dry beans in the house, so I had to improvise in order to pre-bake the crust.  I was searching all over the kitchen, thought about using rice (and thankfully thought better of it) and ended up using some of our polished (washed of course) rocks from our trips up to the North Shore.  I mean COME ON!  Totally hick!  I was laughing the whole time.  But, they worked great, so there's a good tip for you to file away for pie making!

Ella got a bit bored during the pie making, so she had to check out her new Elmo's World Happy Holidays movie (with Baby of course!)

 Carmel apple pie filling

 Cherry / cranberry mixture

YUM! (see the turkeys?!)

 

 

I am so blessed to have these two turkeys in my life.  We had a wonderful weekend (despite Ms. Ella's new 'tude), but still, she's 3, and we'll work on the listening....and not saying no to everything I ask...and above all else, being thankful for this little family of ours.