Thanksgiving Day

It has been a fun weekend for the family---nice to have everyone together (and not have homework!).  It's a new season of our lives in an entirely new place and that meant it was a time of new (and some old) traditions. We truly got to celebrate the many things we have to be thankful for!  Bryce and Todd started early with the guys in the ward for the Turkey Bowl.  They had so much fun...and have been groaning since they got home!  It was pretty frigid early in the morning.  Ohio cold is very different from Utah cold.  This picture is after the layers got stripped off.  They are standing on the deck in our backyard.  You can see part of the back lawn in the picture.  Our lot goes back to the little trees you see behind them, but because no one really has fences it feels like we have acres and acres of land and tons of trees.  It is very picturesque--even with no leaves on the trees.  Todd loves it because he got to buy a riding lawnmower this week too!  Because the back neighbors are so far away we don't even close the blinds really...and the ones above the kitchen sink fell on me in a dramatic flourish anyway, which is another story, but the view is awesome so I can't really complain.

Meanwhile, while Bryce and Todd were running around in the freezing cold acquiring memorable holiday bruises, the more sane members of the family were inside the cozy house having fun in the kitchen.  I made Apple Crisp Cheesecake (which didn't look like the picture but tasted fabulous), and Brenden and Brinnley made our special occasion breakfast...Mike Wazowskis.  It is a ring of pancake with a fried egg inside, a bacon mouth, and fruit ears.  Nothing makes special days more special than fun food traditions, right?  Especially when the traditions involve bacon!  I didn't crop the pictures so you can see our awesome kitchen and the wood floors I didn't realize I would love so much.  I need a stool to reach the top shelves of all the cabinets now, but the tall guys absolutely love the tall ceilings.

Brett had fun playing peek-a-boo and getting into all sorts of trouble in the mud/laundry room next to the kitchen.  He has been in heaven in this house because of the style of doorknobs.  He couldn't open the doors in the old house, but he can do all of them now.  The one to the basement was a round style and it was pretty upsetting to him so his Mr. Incredible dad switched it this week with the one from our closet.  It was better than Christmas!  The day we moved in he kept shutting himself in the closets as a game because it was such a novelty that he could get himself out.  Simple pleasures!

After breakfast Brinnley and I made cream pies together.  We got the recipe from Liz Olsen from the Payson ward.  We made three of them together--coconut cream, banana cream, and chocolate cream (with M&Ms).  We used the extra filling to make "pie bites" in mini crusts we had made the day before in the mini muffin pan.  Those ended up being such a hit...we will definitely do that again.  Brinnley is such a baker and loves learning to do new recipes in the kitchen.  Brooke joined us at the end, but she has had a bad cold this week and wasn't feeling well.  The picture here shows the hanging pans...a new addition to the kitchen.  We love the "healthy" non-stick option and the color they add to the decor.  The kids regularly get the wooden spoons and have a pot & pan band too.  Multi-function kitchen tools!  You may notice that in this picture the toaster oven has taken the place of the microwave since breakfast.  We had some problems with it sparking earlier, and it finally bit the dust today.  It was a 90's model that was older than any of our kids, so I don't feel too bad.  We are also without a dishwasher for the time being.  Thank goodness for the home warranty!

For Thanksgiving dinner we went to the home of Jeff and Joanne Gurr.  Jeff was a high school friend of our Payson friend Melissa Michaelis.  She connected us with them before the move, and they have become wonderful friends. The Gurrs had us for dinner our first night in Ohio and even watched the kids while we went and signed on the new house that night.  We are so thankful for their friendship and the amazing ward family we are a part of here in Springboro!  The Neslin family also joined the Gurrs for Thanksgiving dinner.  Dawn made some amazing rolls that had fresh cooked bacon inside the centers.  They were Brett's favorite, and he entertained the whole table by his exclamations of, "Where's the bacon?...It's bacon!" throughout the meal.  It was hilarious!  He kept going back to the roll basket to find more treasures.  We brought bacon-wrapped green bean bundles (yes, more bacon traditions), Gullivers creamed corn (a Layton family tradition), and sweet potato bake (a new recipe that definately will be a tradition now). We had so much fun talking and playing Bingo afterward.  Brett was fascinated by the "noodles" (dried elbow maccaroni) we used as markers on the Bingo boards.  We got a lot of laughs from that little guy!   He asked Joanne if he could take them to "my new house in Ohio" (which he still says every day it seems).  That was his special Bingo prize. It was a wonderful day!


This scene cracked me up.  It's the four oldest crowded around Todd's I-phone watching an episode of Studio C on the mini screen.  No one has heard of it here, but the kids miss it desperately.  Watching past episodes on You Tube is the girls' new hobby!  Once we came home we just chilled as a family.  We did melty beads, a puzzle (both prizes from Bingo!), piano and cello time, and connected with family in AZ and UT.  We ended up staying up very late, but the laughter and fun memories are always worth it.