Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Hope everyone had a good one :) We did! Chad got to be home thanks to his bum ankle, and that was really wonderful. We had been planning on sacrificing all his holidays when he started working with Dish (including Thanksgiving and Christmas) thanks to people who can't live without TV even if it means sacrificing someone else's holiday and family time. Not that I've thought about this at all or anything.

ANYWAY, blessings in disguise are great because they usually turn something nasty into something nice, like Chad's ankle equaling his passport to Thanksgiving with us :)

We stayed here and did our own dinner just like last year, and for the most part, everything went off without a hitch! The only fiasco was the asparagus. And the stove catching on fire. But we'll start with the asparagus. Word to the wise: broiling is a no-go, even if the big white book of magic recipes tells you to do it. Just don't. I prefer my asparagus nice and mushy and tasty thank you, not charred and crispy and tasting of weird burned vegetable.

And then there was the stove. So for some reason, we never use our back left burner. The other ones always fill up first and we don't usually need another one. Well, today we did. And apparently the last time we used it, something large and flammable snuck down under the coils and laid in wait for the next time we'd turn that one on. I set a pot of green beans to boil, turned to do something else, and when I turned back to check on it, there were flames licking up the side of the pot. Actual flames! I'm totally useless in fire situations I've decided. It's happened once before when I brilliantly set a bag down on a hot burner and it unspontaneously combusted. My reaction in a nutshell: "Ahhh!!! What do I do?! What do I do?!" Good thing Chad was there so he could pick the little bag up and set it in the sink. Geez. Today was similar. I blew out the flames and they popped right back up with a little roaring sound, effectively exhausting my master list of strategies. Chad kind of poked it with a dish towel, and then we decided to stand there and watch it. I promise we're not the overgrown apes we sound like here. Thankfully, it burned down and went out on its own, and luckily our smoke detector doesn't work so we just opened the windows and let everything air out. Top two things on my Christmas list: fire extinguisher and a new battery for the detector. And I think I'll read up on what to do in fire situations so I'm a little less incompetent.

Anyway, overall, we really had a great Thanksgiving. And guess what?! We made whipped cream. With a WHISK. No mixer or anything. Chad and I took turns for over half an hour before the dang stuff finally whipped up. And we looked like lunatics. I was going at the whisk like I was trying to make a fire, and that was actually the best strategy I found. So if you're ever in the same situation, grab a whisking buddy and rub the whisk in between your palms like the both of your lives depend on it. It works after about forty minutes.

Pictures!

And there's no picture of the turkey... it was a little burned and kind of grotesque cause I don't know how to truss, so it was kind of splayed out in a rather undignified manner. But it was soooo good. Chad and I will preach the magic of brining til we die. Moist and delicious. Oh my word. Best turkey ever. 

Handsome chap :)

The spread! Green bean casserole (fresh green beans, thank you), stuffing, mashed potatoes (which Chad did a masterful job on and mashed with a whisk since we don't have a tater masher), cranberry sauce, turkey, the veggies that cooked with the turkey (which we didn't even eat... whoops), gravy, and rolls by my mom's knock-your-socks-off recipe (seriously. these rolls and pumpkin pie were my favorite parts of Thanksgiving growing up). The asparagus was sitting shame-facedly on the counter. Poor shriveled things.

Squinchy face cause he knew the flash was coming. haha :)

So... pictures... remember way back when I tried to make another blog and have everyone switch over? That was because I was running out of free photo space on blogger. And guess what? That day finally came. I used Photobucket to load these, and with the way I put pictures on here, that could be a real pain. And I don't want to pay Google $30 a year for more picture space. So... we'll see what I decide to do. Sorry if its annoying :(

Have a great weekend!

Snow Day

A couple of days last week, it snowed like crazy! What was weird though was that the day before, the high was 70. It was glorious. And then we got all this: 

It was actually kinda fun. The morning after the main snow day & night, there were about 8 inches on the cars. No one was prepared for it, including us, so we just kind of holed up and ran out of milk. Thank goodness for a massive Costco run when things calmed down a little later. Even cold and wet, Emmett had fun exploring.

Emmett's awesome bedhead on snow day 2. I think he was a fan of all the white.

The trees were totally trashed. There were branches allllll over the place and in some places in our neighborhood the streets were basically obstacle courses. 

The front yard

 The cars under these trees were extremely fortunate; some of them got boxed in by all the branches, but no one's car was smushed. 

Anyway, we and our neighbors think all the damage was because there were still so many leaves on the trees, and the snow was really wet and heavy. But thankfully, no harm done as far as we know. A lot of has melted by now, but there's still a surprising amount around on the ground. Remember all that talk of how ready for winter I was? Yeah. Not so. I'm already tired of being cold. Haha. Dang it. 

life lately

Biggest news around here: Chad got hurt at work and is home for a few weeks. He severely sprained his ankle (seriously, you should see it. It's huge and bruised almost to his knee) and starts physical therapy on Monday. At his last doctor's appointment, the doc took pictures of his bruising 'cause it was pretty impressive. So Chad is now officially a specimen :) 

Emmett's taken to running through the living room with Chad's hat down over his eyes. It's funny until he runs into stuff, which he doesn't like much. 

It's supposed to snow tomorrow! I think today was our last of nice, warm weather. It was 70 this afternoon, but it's already getting cooler and the wind is blowing like crazy. Weird though: we're getting all our weather from the south. It almost always comes pouring down from Idaho, but it's backwards this year. Weird. 

And here are a bunch of new pictures of Emmett :) 

He was super duper quiet one day while I was in the bathroom, and when I came out to the living room, he was sitting quietly in this basket. It was adorable. 

In the "front yard."

He's taken to climbing on everything lately. He got up into this cubby all on his own. 

And he found a new seat in the stroller. Guess we don't need a double now, eh?

Super squinchy face. I LOVE this one :)

And that's about it. I'll be 18 weeks on Friday! Totally blows my mind. We find out what we're having in three weeks! At which point we'll be halfway though! I can hardly believe that. I can believe that I'm showing and having sciatic issues already though. Oh well :)

Have a great day everyone!

Happy November!

Is anyone else ecstatic that Halloween's behind us? I hate Halloween. And not just because I married a man who hates it even more than I do. It's such a nasty holiday and I can't believe it weaseled it's way into the national repertoire. October, which could be grouped into Thanksgiving and Christmas time, is instead wasted on zombies and gross decorations. Blegh. Anyway, it's over! Yay! Hope everyone else had fun.

What's going on with us:
Not much. Emmett's been a little under the weather and I think he gave his little bug to me. Hopefully it'll be gone soon.

We find out what we're having in a month! And the baby's been moving more and more. I love that :)

I really want to make a couple of these:

(from here)

and drape them in my kitchen and living room. I even have the paper collection she used! Sigh. I love the holidays.

I can't wait to holidayify our apartment. I like to look at Terrain's website for ideas on things to DIY or buy somewhere else for cheaper. Their stuff is gorgeous, but really expensive. But a lot of it could be made on a budget your own way. So that's my plan. We'll see how it works out. (ps. please ignore the fact that I stole the background picture and header underlining from their site. whoops.)

I'm trying to get up the gumption to teach myself to knit (again). My wrist has finally healed from crocheting and I'm a little worried to try that again, which is a humongous bummer since it's the only thing with yarn I've ever done successfully. But by golly, I'm going to learn to knit. Unless it's gives me carpel tunnel again, in which case I'll burn my yarn supply and curse my weak wrists. This was the last project I made, and I think I forgot to show it off on here:

I love my hat :)

This mini-book has a few beautiful projects that are waaaaaaay over my head, but make me want to learn to knit so bad it hurts.

And here are some pictures of Emmett lately:

Background explanation: our desk setup kind of collapsed, but we're good now. More on that next time.

He got my running headband on and was pretty proud of it :)

He woke up sickish on Tuesday. And if you know Emmett, you know that seeing him sitting quietly like this is totally unlike him. 

He's feeling much better today though :)

Have a great day everyone!