The Feast

This year we decided to host Thanksgiving at our house, with my parents and sister and her husband.
I'm doing a play by play because this was my first time doing the turkey.
First I cleaned it

 Wednesday night

so I could brine it overnight.  It didn't quite fit in my biggest stock pot but I just covered it with plastic wrap and hoped for the best.

 Then Thurs. morning I took it out of the brine and rinsed it again.
This bird was huge, as big as Chloe, well almost, it was 20 lbs!

 Placed some onions and celery inside for yumminess,

 rubbed down with butter (for more yumminess) and sprinkled with paprika.

After just a little over 3 hours it was done and beautiful!

First time carving a turkey too, a little trickier than I thought it would be but not too bad .

 Here's the spread, a little bit of everything, MMMM!

And the best part...the company!

Oh wait maybe the pie is the best part ;) hehe
Pecan, strawberry, banana cream, and of course pumpkin!
Had to try them all of course.

 And we ate and ate and ate!  It was a good day and not too stressful.  I had lots of help from everyone and everything turned out great and yummy!
I am not afraid to cook a turkey any more and will definitely do it again. Gobble, gobble!

Horse Rides

The kids got to go to cousin PJ's birthday party at the end of October.  They had so much fun!  Andrew Goudy brought three of his horses for the kids to ride.  I thought Brooklyn would be the only brave one to get on...but they all proved me wrong.

 Brooklyn and Noah went together because there were a bunch of kids wanting rides.

 Anna and Swayzee.

 Brooklyn and Hallie.

 Addie and Brooklyn.  The older girls couldn't get enough, it was just too much fun.

 Noah shocked us all when he wanted to ride by himself.  I bet it wasn't even a year ago when he wouldn't even go near a horse.  He thinks he's pretty hot stuff now!

What a fun experience!  There were other cowboy games and a cowboy cake too.  Stephanie you sure know how to throw a party!

Happy Halloween

We carved pumpkins with my family on Friday 

 Chloe mostly just wandered around with her milk

 Noah finally overcame his fear of pumpkin guts!!! 

He was able to help Dad clean and carve his pumpkin even though it really grosses him out.

 Our little chubster liked taking the lids off.

 Noah and his bat-pumpkin

 Anna got to help do 2, lucky girl!

 And Brooklyn did hers all by herself, with just a tiny bit of help from Aunt Kristen.

On Halloween Anna was anxiously waiting for Dad and Brooklyn to get home so we could get dressed up and she fell asleep watching out the window. 

Finally ready for the festivities to begin!

We had a wonderfully warm night, perfect for trick-or-treating!!!

We started out the night with a family trunk or treat at DeGraffenrieds.

Here are my cuties

Chloe is a lion

 Anna is a princess of course 

 Noah is Batman the Dark Night 

 And our little witchy poo Brooklyn hehehe

We continued our night with trick-or-treating to family and friends.  Doughnuts of course, at my parents house. A Wonderful tradition if I say so myself. Me and Chloe stayed home to hand out candy after a while. Dad took the other kids around and to a haunted house/garage.

Chloe ate plenty of suckers while I answered the door. At least she's happy right!?

Hope everyone had as good of a night as we did. I don't think it could have gotten much better.

Happy Halloween!