Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving Day!

Turkey Trot - in our former lives, we really did love to run together. Tim did 3 marathons and lots of "halves" and I did 3 half marathons. This is the first 5K we've done together without a stroller in 7 years! A great running date!

Thanksgiving Day with these four turkeys! So fun!!!

So great to spend time with Jake. He is doing so well - what a walking miracle!

Goofball!

Just the girls!

Friday morning at the zoo!

This girl will not keep her shoes on!

In the car, in the stroller, she takes them off constantly ...

Our great friends, the Epsteins, from Memphis were in STL for Thanksgiving, too!

They and their family met us at the zoo!

Friday night we celebrated my brother Brad's 40th birthday at Dave and Buster's!

So fun!

Brad, Tiff and Sabrina!

Happy Birthday!!!

The Four Amigos!

Someday the four above will look like these four below!

Four of the five cousins on my mom's side of the family!

Wendy was in town from MN. Chris, we missed you - he is in California...

So good to visit with such good friends and family!

Jake and Morgen

Saturday, we went to the Arch with my high school girlfriends and their families!!!

Inside the little "capsule" elevators!

Tiny windows to look out at the Illinois side and then across to look out at the Missouri side.

All the kids (except nearly 4 year old, Claire, who had a fever virus :( )

Ages 17 months to 8 years!

After we left, I realized we had gotten a pic of all the kids, but not the grown ups - uggh!

We'll have to get together again soon!

Julie, Beth, Amanda, Tiffany and Bridge! Five friends for a VERY long time!

The kids really enjoyed all the talking parts of the westward expansion museum...

Sunday morning before we left, Pop and Madeline drove to get us delicious donuts!!

Thanks for a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend in St. Louis!

Getting Ready!

We've been doing a few things the last few days to get ready for Thanksgiving....

Dyeing noodles for Eli's preschool class to make necklaces!

Loving to SHAKE!!!!

Making a practice necklace at home!

Making these AWESOME pumpkin muffins my friend Amy makes. They are incredible! If you like pumpkin pie, you'll love these!

Pumpkin Butterscotch Muffins

1 ¾ cup flour, sifted ½ cup light brown sugar ½ cup sugar ½ tsp ginger

½ tsp mace (or pumpkin pie spice) 1 tsp cinnamon 1/8 tsp ground cloves 1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp baking powder ¼ tsp salt 2 large eggs 1 c. canned pumpkin

1 stick butter, melted 1 cup butterscotch chips ½ c. chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350Ñ. Mix dry ingredients creating a well in middle of mixture. In another bowl, whisk together melted butter, eggs, and pumpkin. Stir in butterscotch chips and pecans. Pour into well of dry ingredients and fold together just until dry ingredients are moistened. Do not over mix. Spoon batter evenly into greased muffin tins. Bake 20-25 minutes. Makes 18 muffins.

Yum!

Ready to take to St. Louis - if they make it there!

It's a long trip with 5 people in a car who LOVE these muffins!!!!

Madeline's Thanksgiving feast at school! We LOVE Mrs. Puckett!

Fun with friends - we miss our sweet friend, Frances who is out of town right now!

Can't wait until she comes back!!!!

Elijah, Eli, Miss Alyson and Nate:

Pajama wearing, pizza eating Pilgrims for Pp!!!!

We learned Pilgrims did not have buckles on their hats - but fabric instead!

Last year, we made cranberry sauce for the first time. My friend Amy told me how to do this, too -- as you can see, she makes wonderful, delicious treats! She has taught me so much - not just about cooking! She is a great friend I am thankful to have!

Ok, so here we are making cranberry sauce. ... 1 cup orange juice, 1 cup sugar, one package of cranberries! EASY!!!!!!

Starting to pop. Not such dramatic pops this year... you can see them splitting.

Let it simmer for a while! Yum!

Our last thing to make is the apple pie - Madeline requested apple pie!

This was fun, but not without incident. Don't know why the step ladder is so much more appealing than a chair, but we had some time outs over it!

The contraption we are using is the Pampered Chef apple peeler, corer, slicer. I got this about 11 years ago and used to use it in my classroom when we made apple sauce and to make apple pie at home! It's awesome, but I think it's about worn out. This time, the peeler part didn't work quite so well!

Madeline measuring herself with the peeling!

Can't wait for Thanksgiving! All of you, have a wonderful holiday! Be safe!

We are thankful for each and every one of you!!!!!