Thanksgiving traditions

Most people have some kind of holiday traditions whether they know it or not. From picking out a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving to eating the same array of foods to that uncle who always drinks a little too much and ends up telling inappropriate jokes before dozing off in the easy chair.

Hey, some traditions are better than others. And, as with relatives, you can't always pick 'em.

In McMom's house at Thanksgiving, Jenny and I have another kind of tradition: We scrape the bottoms off of stuff that the McMom burns.

Which would be a lot more interesting if we had one of those aforementioned drunken uncles.

A couple Thanksgivings ago, we scraped the burnt bottoms off Stuffing Balls. The McMom played it safe this year and went with Stovetop. Jenny and I thought we were in the clear, but we were sadly mistaken.

For Thanksgiving '08, it was burnt crescent rolls.

Here we are hard at work with only a minute or two to spare before it was time to eat:














Notice the McMom innocently looking over our shoulders to check on our progress.

And here are the fruits of our labor.














I'll have you know - those suckers were straight out of the oven and they were hot!

Yes, holiday traditions can be very nice things. But not always.

You've heard of mohawks...

My mom captioned this photo, "Oh hawk!"














I swear, I've never seen a baby with such crazy hair. The Jolie-Pitt boys would be jealous of Owen's naturally-occurring mohawk that they seem to work so hard for.

Final 2008 baby

Congratulations to Byron, Lisa, and Melaney on the new addition to their family - Lindsey Elisabeth was born on December 4th and weighed in at 8lbs, 1oz.



















And here's Melaney looking like a very proud big sister. She has no idea what she's in for down the road...



















I think Lindsey wraps up the 2008 babies in our lives. Here's the rundown:
--June: Lyla
--September: Chase
--October: Owen; two sets of neighbors also had babies
--December: Lindsey

Congrats to everyone on their (most-of-the-time) bundles of joy.

A dose of cuteness

Chase says, "RAWRRRRR!"














Lyla says, "I love prunes - gimme more!"

Thanksgiving Part II

I got to spend some time with Chase on Thursday. It's been about a month since we saw him and he grew so much!















After Thanksgiving dinner, the McHusband was on bottle duty.

















Then he and Chase spent some quality time together just hanging out.
















Look at that happy baby.















Brewster, meanwhile, took advantage of everyone being distracted to curl up in a most coveted spot.
















Earlier, Jenny gave Chase a bath that transformed him from a regular baby to a Snowbaby. See for yourself. Chase:

















A Snowbaby:

He doesn't look too thrilled, does he?

And, finally, a family picture.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Thanksgiving

It's the one week anniversary of Thanksgiving '08 so I figured today would be the best day to add some pictures from our trip to see both sides of the fam and all those cutie-patootie babies.

On Wednesday, the McHusband and I had dinner with my mom, sisters, their hubbies, and the babies. We had a very traditional meal - delicious twice-baked potatoes that Bri made, the meat of our choice (it was BYOMeat) that Nate grilled to perfection, and the yummy Seven Layer Salad that my mom brought. People were raving about the storemade rolls that I brought, but enough about me. Shannon made (and I use that term loosely) a dessert: a Cool Whip-Fudge Stripe concoction that was actually really good. Here's the recipe:

--Dunk Fudge Stripes in milk.

--Layer with Cool Whip.

--Repeat.

See why I used "made" loosely? No matter, it was still scrumptious. We don't discriminate between hard-to-make desserts and easy ones - we like them all.

Actually, I did more than contribute those oh-so-fabulous rolls. I made Peanut Butter Fudge and it was pretty darn delectable if I do say so myself.

As soon as I walked in the door, I was put to work.

As you can see by the look on my face, I was very upset to be handed the baby and told to snuggle him while he ate.

Here's Bri holding Owen. See how he's looking for me? "Where's my best aunt ever?"

Or maybe he's just nervous about that oversized freckle on her neck and trying to put some distance between him and it.

Uncles Calvin and McHusband got in on the Lyla-holding action:

Careful, McHusband, she's not a puppy.

Lyla seemed happiest sitting on the breakfast bar playing with the faucet.


















Maybe we have a future plumber on our hands? I bet she'll have the cutest plumber's crack in the biz.

New counters!

I'm going out of order here - I owe my faithful readers (all 6 of you) a Thanksgiving recap bursting with pictures, but I'm going to do a post about my new granite counters first.

I LOVE MY NEW COUNTERS!

The guys who installed the counters were here for a little over an hour so in that time I went from no counters (the McHusband and I removed the old ones last night) to beautiful granite counters. We chose New Venetian Gold granite and we actually got the pick the slabs that our counters came from. Pretty cool, huh?

Without further adieu, I introduce MY NEW COUNTERS:














A close-up with the cabinets:














We commissioned the breakfast bar - turned the island from a Plain Jane one-level island into a two-level breakfast bar. The McMom planted the idea of the breakfast bar in my head so she's glad we're happy with it or else I'm sure the guilt would keep her up at night. Okay, so maybe it's the late-afternoon coffee keeping her up, but I'm a Gen X-er so I'm gonna roll with the idea that it's all about us.

Back to the counters. Here's the breakfast bar:



















And, just because I LOVE MY NEW COUNTERS, here's another close-up showing the cranberry-ish spots that match our counters. They were the main reason I thought this pattern would work for us.














The McHusband was lucky enough to get home from work and have to get started on putting in the new faucet, which won't be done until tomorrow because my sink, which was "included" with the counters, didn't come with drains. You know, cuz a sink having drains isn't something you expect, right?

Look, who's that down there?

It's the McHusband!

Tori inspected his work.














"Sorry, bub, but the whatchamacallit's not connected properly to the whichamajiggy so your thingie's gonna leak. And you don't want a leaky thingie."

The McHusband agreed wholeheartedly on the leaky thingie matter. Nope, you can't have one of those...