Life Lately and Thanksgiving

Recently, life has been pretty focused around the fact that my brother is home from Japan for a couple of weeks! 

Last Sunday night I could not get Cora to sleep, no matter what we did. So after about 2 hours of trying, for the first time in my parenting career I resorted to driving around for an hour.

Driving the county roads trying to get a particular 2 year old to sleep. Ya know, mom life. Please go to sleep quickly, it's past my bedtime!

A photo posted by Rebekah (@bekah.jane) on Nov 22, 2015 at 8:58pm PST

The next morning we got up very early and met my Dad at McDonalds where John took his car on to work because we couldn't find the keys to John's car (found them later in the diaper bag, whoops!). Then Dad, the girls and I went on to the airport to pick up Josh!

He's home! #LewisKidlets

A photo posted by Rebekah (@bekah.jane) on Nov 23, 2015 at 7:33am PST

Tuesday was a pretty typical day. Ada had her 4 month well visit with the Pediatrician and I found out I'm going to need to go dairy free. :( :( :( this isn't exactly going well but more on that later.

After the doctor, John and I were going to get a bit of Christmas shopping done but got a call that Cora was running a fever at Grandpa's house. After her febrile seizure in the spring we take even low grade fevers seriously so we rushed home.

(and I have no pics of the day)

Wednesday was the delightful day of food prep! 

For the first time I made my mom's chocolate pie's (with my Dad's help) and they turned out great!!

A photo posted by Rebekah (@bekah.jane) on Nov 25, 2015 at 7:01pm PST

Thanksgiving Day we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house and spent the day with their family. It was a great day and I have very few photos to document it. :)

One year ago I was newly pregnant with this little turkey. Morning sickness had just set in & we were waiting until Christmas to announce we were expecting so I was really hoping no one noticed the toddler sized serving of food I was eating for Thanksgiving dinner. She is such a blessing and I'm so thankful for her & blessed that she is ours. #AdaMayme

A photo posted by Rebekah (@bekah.jane) on Nov 26, 2015 at 7:51pm PST

The weekend has been much of the same. Sunday was the last day that we will all be together as a family for at least a year and we did take a picture to document it but of course I don't have it to share so that will have to wait for another day.

I hope you had a fantastic and blessed Thanksgiving!

Finish This! {Thanksgiving Edition}

Join us in the weekly link up! Also, it's just a few weeks until the Year In Review link up (Dec 31)! I participated last year and am already working on my post this year! You can get more info on this on Nicole's blog! 

My favorite Thanksgiving tradition`
My little family doesn't have any Thanksgiving traditions of our own yet, but I'm hoping to start one this year. I'm going to put something in the crock pot to have for breakfast (so it's easy!) and we're going to eat breakfast as a family while watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade! We've started making the effort that for the big holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) that we are home to start the day, we may travel to visit family later in the day but we begin in our own home. I think this will be a nice family centered way to start a day of Thanksgiving!
As far as existing traditions, really my family doesn't have any "traditions" per say, but I've always loved all the women in the family gathering in the kitchen preparing the meal for that day. One of my favorite pictures is my Mom, Aunt, Me and my Great Aunt all standing in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day. (It's not handy or I would share it with you all!) I have so many memories of times in the kitchen with these strong women and good cooks dating back to when I had to be as young as 4 or 5 years old!

My most memorable Thanksgiving was
As a child we would (usually) gather at my Grandparents (Dad's parents) house for Thanksgiving. When my Grandparents were living there would be as many as 15 to 20 gathered for dinner. My Grandparents house was a big Turn of the Century house complete with old lead pipes for plumbing. Well, this particular Thanksgiving the sewage pipes under the house decided to break. As in break in half at several joints. Of course no stores were open (closed like they should be!) for us to go buy the necessary parts to repair these pipes. So, we all spent that Thanksgiving with the men under the house repairing pipes with duct tape and what odd pipes and parts my Granda and his friend Gene had around the house while the women prepared the meal. Then, the men went to Gene's house (just around the corner) to clean up and return to eat. We sat down, had a nice meal and then they went back at it, this time with the assistance of my Mom. It wasn't the most glamorous Thanksgiving, but you know what - it sure was memorable!

My favorite Thanksgiving food or dish
I don't just love turkey, infact I just tolerate it. This is the only time of year I eat it. I enjoy ham but don't just love it. I do love making my Granny's dressing, it tastes good, but honestly not any better or different than doctored up boxed stuffing. There's just something traditional and wonderful about preparing her dressing. I also prepare for tradition sake only a cranberry relish jello thing. I honestly despise the thing. The rest of my family likes it but it was my Granny's recipe and my mom took over preparing it years ago so it sticks around.
I’m so thankful
For my little family. For my larger extended family. For a roof over my head, it may be a leaky roof with problems but I really do get that we are very, very blessed compared to so many families. I'm so grateful for my brothers who are helpful and always willing to lend a hand, to family, friends and strangers the same. I'm thankful and so incredibly grateful for the men and women serving our great nation at home and abroad who are unable to be home with their families for this holiday. We will have an empty seat for Joshua, but it's just our first holiday without him. So many have an empty seat for so much longer than we do. 

 

Join us! LISA (COASTLINED), JEN (The Arizona Russums), BECKY (The Java Mama) and NICOLE (Three 31)

Thanksgiving Food & My love/hate With Pies

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching and all I can think about is the food! 

I am really not a turkey fan, but I'll eat a piece (yes, one) just to say I did. Ham is my preference regardless of the holiday meal. 

Really my love is for all the sides! My Granny's Dressing Recipe, that is the definition of Thanksgiving dressing for me! Every year I make my Mom's cranberry relish and I never eat any of it. It's just not my thing but it's tradition and everyone else enjoys it and there's never any left over.

This year, I'm looking forward to using the leftovers from Thanksgiving to make "Fried Thanksgiving".

Last year after Thanksgiving my father-in-law (who is an amazing cook!) made these and I fell in love! 

I was going to work up a recipe to post, since he just flies by the seat of his pants in the kitchen most of the time. Then, after a quick google, pfft who uses google anymore? Pinterest search I found plenty of great existing tutorials, so why reinvent the wheel? Check it out here.

About the only thing we do differently is we include just about everything into our balls, they're not just stuffing. Mashed potatoes, green beans, maybe (sometimes) a little corn, left over turkey chopped up... the options are endless! And, make sure you make the cranberry sauce or some version of it - it's worth it!!

Really the reason I'm posting this is because of my pie dellima this year. 

Hi, My name is Rebekah and I (generally) don't like pie.

Hiiiii Rebekah.

Now that I've admitted that... I'll scarf down a small piece of pumpkin pie every Turkey Day because, when in Rome? It's also usually pretty lathered up in whipped cream.

I do love a good key lime pie, but that's not very festive for the holiday.

I'm honestly not sure what it is that I don't like, maybe I need to revisit this... but back on point - 

Pecan Pie - last Thanksgiving our plans changed last minute because our Cousin had strep throat and I had a 1 month old, so we all stayed home and far away from his germs (love ya kiddo)! When frantically running through Kroger the day before getting everything we needed to cook an entire Thanksgiving meal (I had originally only been responsible for a few things when it was going to be a multi-family shared meal) I came across "Pecan Pie in a Jar" I don't recall the brand but it was life changing! (It wasn't this one I found a picture of, you can find at Williams & Sonoma but it looked just like this!)

When I say life changing, I mean it... I don't like pecans and I loved this! 

It was sooo sweet (my kind of dessert) and it was surypy but not runny.

I'll watch for it again this year, but wouldn't life just be better if I just had the recipe to make it?

So please, share your pecan pie recipes! Are they similar to the deliciousness I speak of? I'm craving this pie as I write this! We scarfed it! If I find it, I'll by several jars this year so I can bake them and compare to other recipes I come across!

2014 Fall Bucket List & November Goals

This is going to be a busy month! I'm looking forward to lots of Thanksgiving Holiday festivities as well as accomplishing lots of work at our house.

The fun stuff first - 

November is going to end up being just as busy if not more so than October was. In November we're looking Forward to:

Jacob's senior recital

Joshua being home for his 10 day leave
Family Thank-mas with Josh home

Stephanie's lingerie shower (for me to attend...)

Jacob's bachelor party (for John of course)

Thanksgiving celebrations with all the family

Some of the not so fun things that I have to attend to are - 

Getting settled in at our house. For a various sundry of reasons we're still camping out at my Dad's house. It's been so great that we've had his spare room available to us, but we're ready to be in our own home and back on a better routine. 

I need to go to the dentist. :( I've been putting it off for a while. I went while I was pregnant with Cora because I hadn't been in a long time and that's one of the things that everyone says you should do while pregnant. They didn't want to do x-rays while I was there because of the baby but they suspected some cavities. I'm *really* dreading going back, I know that it will be at least 3 more visits, one for the cleaning and x-rays another for fillings on half my mouth and another for fillings on the other half. I don't wanna! :(  Really my only motivation is I don't want to put it off so long that I'm pregnant again and even though none of the cavities are bothering me (they said they all looked very minor - likely a result of fabulous pregnancy hormones) I really don't want to be pregnant, miserable with a cavity and there not be much they can do for me.

And lastly, I have got to give up cokes! I have just never been able to kick this habit completely! I'll get so close to going a while without them and then pick them up because of a "special event"or party and then can't drop them again. They're truly my addiction. Coffee, I like it but I can take it or leave it, sweets same thing I can live without them but Cokes are so hard for me to not to just grab. When we're at our house it'll be easier in the sense that we just won't have them around. God give me will power!!

What are your November/Fall plans?