holidaze

Wow, how did it get to be Christmas time already?? Seriously, this year has gone by the fastest. Is it like this then you wake up one day as a 93 year old woman?? If so, I want no part of that train ride. We hosted Thanksgiving again this year. It's so much easier doing it that way. Less dragging the kids around and both sides of the family can join in on the fun. No one has to miss out on seeing the kids (although I'm sure my mom is thinking twice after the fart fest after Thanksgiving) and no one has to pick one side of the family over the other.

We cooked a ginormous turkey this year. It was over 23lbs!! It was so yummy!! Had a little scare that it was cooked in a couple hours but thank god we checked it all over and didn't trust the thermometer since it wasn't done. Put Tom back in the oven and cooked him some more. He was tender, juicy and so flavorful. We (I really should say the hubs but I helped by standing by and watching) injected him with butter, lime juice, garlic and other spices/seasonings. Sooooo good!! Had the other usual dishes-mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, pineapple salad, fruit salad, peas and cottage cheese (with gravy "accidentally" spilled over it-Blech!!) cranberry sauce, yams and rolls. Mom brings the gravy, stuffing and pineapple salad. My mother-in-law brings the peas, cottage cheese and rolls and we do the rest. My brother-in-law's girlfriend brought us coffee from the 'bucks and cookies. Just what this family needs, a Starbucks barista! Ok, let's see some pics!!

Working on the table the hubby made for us. We've been looking at tables for our kitchen but just couldn't pay hundreds of dollars for a set. We knew at some point we would have to. I stumbled across this website and told the hubby about it and a wood working freak was born. He decided to get it done for Thanksgiving. He's got several projects he wants to do. He looks at drills online and youtube videos on woodworking. When he gets an idea....

Kaelyn working on the Oreo pie. Decided to go all out and get real Oreos!!

My brownie pecan pie ready to go in the oven. You can get the recipe here. Yum.

Looks nice kid!

Mine doesn't look too shabby either.

The girls working on the fruit salad. The boys didn't do any cooking. They suck.

Removing the insides. Yes, we didn't have a repeat of this.

Isn't he cute?

Looks kinda gross raw. Blech! Get in the oven pronto!

Injecting the butter and seasoning. The turkey was soooooo good!!

Fruit salad.

Our table. Now we just need real chairs instead of folding card table chairs. The hubs is thinking about making them. The table cost us under $200. Our next project shouldn't be as much since we had to get start up supplies.

We have way more room in the new place.

Making the cranberry sauce. It's an easy recipe-open can of sauce, dump into bowl, eat. MMMMMM

Turkey! Turkey! Turkey!

Yeah the chairs look ghetto but we had to make due.

LOL The kids are thrilled with their seats.

Digesting our dinner while watching football. The hubby and I were planning our Black Friday attack. I did a little pre-Black Friday shopping online at Kohls.com.

Speaking of Black Friday, it was exhausting and thrilling at the same time. Basically, we were in the store from about 730pm-ish to 630am-ish. We got everything we wanted but it was really tiring with all the standing in line and worrying if we were gonna get everything we wanted. We actually did some online shopping while we were in the store. Ha! It's kinda cool that everyone helped their fellow shoppers. People were pointing out where items were to other people in the store. Why can't people be like that all the time?? Now onto some Christmas photos!!

Our annual trip to the Mission Inn in Riverside to see the Christmas lights.

This was taken from the top of the parking garage across the street from the hotel. The stairwells smell like urine. Klassy.

Kaelyn took this artsy photo by mistake.

Real reindeer!! Dunno why they weren't at the North Pole helping Santa get ready for the big day. Maybe they got shipped here since the one was missing an antler.

Yummy treats from Coffee Bean. I like the 'bucks better.

The "face." Why do couples do this?

They are all getting so big.

Some nice lady took our picture and actually knew how to operate the SLR. Poor thing was even standing in the rain for us.

Creepy elves at the Mission Inn.

Brandon jumped in front of Hayley. She wanted to throat punch him after I took the picture since he was blocking her. Funny stuff.

Look how big they've gotten.

Sigh....wish our house looked as beautiful as the Mission Inn's Christmas decorations.

Kinda creepy Santa.

Brandon was all emo here since he got a "talking to" for insisting he liked coffee and then didn't want to drink his coffee. He only chugged it because he thought we were gonna make him do chores to pay us back for his drink. Kids...

Me with my not so little girl. She doesn't like to be called a little girl.

They are all turds but I love them.

Chowing down on a bucket o' donuts. They were scrumptious.

Awww they made up!

We are almost done with our shopping. Just have a few more things to buy then we can just sit back, relax and enjoy the season without running around like crazy people. I have lots of goodies I want to bake. Hopefully I don't screw them up so I can blog about my yummy treats. Merry Christmas!