No pressure....

I mentioned in my previous post about being a little stressed about Thanksgiving. So, I thought I'd share with you the source of my stress. Since Steven and I got married, our Thanksgiving tradition is to have lunch with his family and then either later that day or on Friday, we get together with my family for a couple of days. Now when I came into my husband's family, they had a pretty well established Thanksgiving routine, meaning this person always makes this and this person always makes that. So the first year of our marriage, when I asked what I could bring, the response was something like why don't you just bring a dessert. So over the past 5 years, I have taken my role as the dessert maker very seriously. I have done my best to make a variety because for some strange reason, not everyone loves pumpkin flavored desserts!
How un-thanksgiving!
Anyway, last week, Steven tells me that he is getting a free turkey from his bus driving job. He calls his brother to see if they have bought a turkey yet. He tells Steven that they haven't and then he asks Steven, "why don't y'all just cook the turkey?" And Steven says, "sure WE'LL do that."
Y'all...even though my sweet husband used the personal pronoun WE, it really means SHE!

OMW!!! I just went from being the dessert maker to the turkey cooker, HOLY COW!

And since the free turkey isn't big enough to feed everyone, I'll actually be cooking two.
I've been a little freaked out by this responsibility. I've called my mom, been reading all kinds of websites, talking to complete strangers and did y'all know that there are about a million different ways to cook a turkey? To brine or not to brine, baste every 30 minutes to don't open the oven at all, rub butter under the skin to don't put anything on the skin...blah..bla..gooble..gooble..gooble! The sweet little lady in Wally World told me (yes, I told you I asked complete strangers!)that she completely wraps the turkey in aluminum foil and cooks it all night! But did you know that the FDA doesn't recommend cooking turkeys at a low heat for long periods of time because of the possibility of bacterial growth?
You can see my dilemma, I've over educated myself on this!
So tomorrow, I'm going to go ahead and cook our two turkeys. I'm doing it early for 2 reasons, we have to be at the in-laws around 11am so if I waited til Thursday, I'd have to start cooking ridiculously early. Secondly, if I totally mess them up tomorrow, I have time for a do-over!!!

At this point, I don't think I'm going to ask for any of your advice. It would probably do more harm than good. If you think about it, say a little prayer for me. And I guess if things go really bad, we could always just show up with some packets of ketchup.

Hope you have a very blessed Thanksgiving!
Love Y'all!

Survival 101

Have you ever had one of those days when you think, "you can't make this stuff up!" I had one of those days last week. It was a typical school morning. Steven leaves around 6:30, so I get the kids ready for school. Usually, I let the little boys stay in their pj's but on this day, my plan was to go to Wally World after dropping Emma & Dougie off, so I had to get them dressed. Caleb was kind of grumpy about putting his shoes on, so I told him to bring them and we'd put them on when we got to the store. I couldn't find Asher's shoes, so I assumed they were in the van because that's where he takes them off.
So we left for school, we weren't running late and it was overall a pretty good morning. We drop off E &D and as we're pulling out of the school parking lot, I mention to Caleb that we're heading to W*l-M*rt, to which he says, "but I don't have my shoes on?" I tell him it's ok, we'll put them on when we get there to which he informs me, "I didn't bring them." Oh great. At this point I debated about going home(remember WM is 30 mins. from my house), but I really needed to go, so I told Caleb, "well at least you have socks on, you can just ride in the back of the buggy."
In the short ride between the school and the store, Caleb was begging me to stop at any & every place we passed that offered any kind of food. I think his exact words were, "puhleeeeze, Mommy, I'm starving to death!" Now realize that he had eaten a bowl of cereal before we left the house, so I knew that he wasn't actually starving.
When we finally got to the store, I went to put Asher's shoes on and you guessed it, they were not in the van. Once again, I debated on just going home but I was kind of stressed about what I needed to get in preparation for Thanksgiving (more on that later) so I opted to take my 2 boys and their socked feet to the store.
And of course, we saw several people we know, including a man from our church, who lives 30 mins. north of this store but was making a delivery. He just laughed and told me how his wife couldn't get their kids to wear their coats that morning.
So our shopping experience went smoothly and about half way home Caleb out of the blue says to me, "Don't worry about it, Mommy." When I ask him what he's talking about, he says, "I'm not hungry anymore." Oh, ok, why not? "Well, I ate some ketchup." WHAT? "Yeah, I found this little packet and I sucked the ketchup out of it."
And you know how I responded?

"You didn't spill any of it, did you?"

Love Y'all!

Such talent....

Yesterday was a rainy, kind of cold day. So after taking Emma and Dougie to school, Caleb, Asher and I came home and just chilled. As you will see in the video, the boys pretty much stayed in their pj's and played all day. At one point, Caleb started playing with a 'carmonida' otherwise known as a harmonica. When Asher started showing us how well he could play it too, I just had to get it on video. He has quite a knack for playing the carmonida, I mean harmonica!

Untitled from Cheryl A on Vimeo.

This is embarassing.....

I can't believe it's mid-November and I'm just now posting pictures from Halloween.
Oh well!
Every year at Emma and Dougie's school, they have a big costume parade for the students and I mean from the Kindergartners all the way up to the high schoolers. Every year, students try to come up with the most clever costumes to win the contest. Dougie and his friend Cole were the cheese and evaluator from the Cheez-It commercial. Since all the 4th graders dress up, the competition was pretty tough and they didn't win.

Emma and 3 of her class mates dressed up like Ginger, Mary Ann, Gilligan and The Skipper! Since most of the 7th graders are too cool chose not to dress up, they won the competition for their age group. Although, I believe they would have won no matter what! They were too cute!

As you know, Halloween was on Sunday, so after our service, our church had a fall festival. The kids wore their costumes and played some games.

Here's Caleb, aka Buzz Light Year and some of his buddies.

And here's Asher, as a little boy in a UGA jersey. Great costume, don't you think? My plan was to have him wear a cute little skunk costume that Dougie wore when he was this age. But when I attempted to but the furry cap on his head a week before Halloween, he was having no part of it. And to be honest, since it was 80 degrees that day, I think he would have been a little hot in that! So I just put his jersey on him and called it a day! Lame, I know.

So that was our Halloween. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the kids together. Maybe next year!

Isaiah 55:8

Please say a prayer for our family today.
Thanks!
Love y'all dearly!!!