Lessons From Thanksgiving Dinner

Can I just say Thanksgiving was sooooo fun?! As far as dinner preparations, overall things went pretty smoothly. Especially considering we had 20 people here, most of whom brought part of the meal and needed kitchen space or appliances to complete the finishing touches. We joked about how many cooks we could FIT in the kitchen, and for the last hour or two before we ate it was not uncommon to have 5-6 of us in the cooking area. When we were preparing the turkey I couldn't find the gizzards, which I wanted for the soup. I couldn't believe someone had left the gizzards out of our turkey. It took me about 5 minutes to remember that there are two holes in the bird, and they were in the other one. The biggest oops I made was doing the candied yams (never done those before). I put a nice solid layer of large marshmallows on top of the yams, put a lid on, and stuck them in the oven alongside the stuffing. About 30 minutes later someone smelled smoke. We opened the oven and found that marshmallows expand in heat and had spilled over the top of the container onto the floor of the oven, sparking a fire in the back left corner. Next time we'll put just a few marshamallows on, then spread them. We'll also put foil in the bottom of the oven to make clean up easier. But those were really the only things that went wrong. All the food was delicious, everyone enjoyed each other's company, there was lots of laughter and talk and games, and I can't wait to do it all again next year.

Thanksgiving

There is so much to be grateful for:

fresh fruit
family
cell phones
internet
variety in our diets
heating
hot water
hot husband
nice neighbors
piano
two cars
fridge/freezer
health
vitamins
BYU football
sewing machine
CD player
pets
queen size bed
garbage services
right to vote
lawn mowers
weather forecasts
books/ability to read
washing machine
fun holidays to look forward to
pens
cute paper

This isn't even the tip of the iceberg. I could go on and on. We're so blessed. I hope I will never forget the source of all my blessings and be quick to recognize them.

Weekend With Walt

There's some good alliteration for you. It was such a fun weekend because I just hung out with Walt the whole time. Friday night we ran some random errands together, including finding a birthday gift for his dad (this was accomplished by walking up and down the tool isles in Sears for about 30 minutes - not bad actually. And Walt was able to point out his wishlist for the next three years, so it was a very efficient trip.) Then we came home and played Backgammon before bed. Saturday we went running together, went to the temple, then cleaned the house while we listened to the BYU football game. Saturday night we ate dinner and watched Stephen Hawking's Universe video (well okay, I fell asleep while Walt watched).

We will be having all of my family over for Thanksgiving dinner. This means I'm cooking the turkey. Anyone have tips for the cooking of the turkey?

Beautiful November

Hard to believe it's November with the weather we've been having. It's beautiful! Tuesday was Walt's birthday, so we invited about 35 of our friends over to the church to carve pumpkins and celebrate. Just kidding, it was Mutual night. We did the carving outside in the pavilion and had a bonfire on Walt's portable fire pit. Walt is well into his 30's now - 31!! :)

Friday night Alan, Liz and Lilli spent the night, and we stayed up until 1:00 in the morning playing Settlers of Catan. It feels great to be spontaneous sometimes and throw caution to the wind! Live on the edge! Forget the consequences tomorrow! :) It's been forever since I stayed up that late playing games. So fun!

For Halloween my 8-months pregnant sister-in-law Sarah dressed all in black, taped a white circle with an 8 on it to her tummy and carried a cue stick around. She was an 8 ball! I loved it. I was really boring and just wore orange and black. I'm not very good at the whole costume thing. But I love looking at everyone else's costumes!

Spooky sound effects

We're getting excited about having trick-or-treaters on Halloween because Walt is rigging a system where sound effects are triggered by people walking up to our house (a hooting owl), ringing the doorbell (a moaning ghost), us opening the door (a loud creak) and us closing the door (a goofy voice saying Happy Halloween). We tried to pick sound effects that aren't too scary, but enough to get some blood pumping. :)

Silbling Sleepover

This weekend was the 1st Annual Graden Sibling Sleepover. It was kind of last minute. Monday night Bry and Sarah were here for dinner and FHE and we were talking and realizing that three of us would be on Fall Break that week, Bryan would finish the 3rd of his 4 accounting tests on Saturday morning, 5 of us have October birthdays, and all of this called for some kind of major celebration! Everyone jumped on board and all six siblings were here at our house Saturday night with spouses and kids, making a total of 14.5 of us (Sarah is due in 6 weeks)! Everyone arrived around 6:30, and we ate pizza and talked and laughed and played King, Queen, Beggar until we felt like going to bed. Jon and Heather ended up going back home for the night, but the rest were here. The nieces all slept in our den, all our bedrooms were full, and one couple was on the family room floor. Definitely worth repeating. Good memories!

Month of Birthdays

Today is my brother's birthday and my step-mom's birthday. Next week is my Dad's birthday and my step-brother's birthday. The next week is my nephew's birthday, my sister-in-law's birthday, and Walt's birthday. Walt has another nephew due on Monday, so that will make 8 birthdays in October! It's almost like Christmas for all the people I need to think about and do something for. It's so fun! (But a little hard on the budget).

This week on Thursday and Friday is a big conference for the Utah Association of School Psychologists. I sit on the state board for that organization and co-chair the conference committee, so it has been a big deal, and I'll be glad when it's over. To be honest, several other members of the committee have done way more for it than I have since they all work together in Salt Lake and have done these conference before, and I'm new and kind of out of the way in Provo. I've learned a lot about organizing a big event, though. There are so may details to work out, and so many expenses to consider. Wow.