I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving with your sweet families. We have had such a restful one. Many thanks to my family for going in with momma for a gluten-free Thanksgiving:). Honestly, I really couldn’t tell the difference (thanks to Pamala’s cooking products). I think we’re going to make these gluten-free yummies for the kids (one of our kids was having a tummy ache last week…and guess what the pediatrician said–try taking gluten out of the diet…guess we are just bound to be gluten free!). Don’t these look yummy??
Rico Suave smoked our turkey and had ole turkey stuffed full of veggies instead of traditional stuffing. I loooove some smoked turkey:)
Thanks to the help of WHOLE FOODS–I was able to still pull off gluten free pumpkin pie (next year I’ll be on this track long enough to make my own crust–but I’m not the gluten free expert baker just yet…although they DO give you the recipe on how to do that HERE😉
I used Pamala’s gluten free pancake mix to make yummy blueberry muffins! (The recipe is on the side!) The blueberries were out of my parents backyard:) I served them and everyone voted you couldn’t tell the difference between these and the muffins with gluten.
I also added THIS to our table (which was QUITE the process–but oh so worth it! YUM! Last but not least lots of veggies and momma did bring a dressing for the rest of the crew. Mine didn’t look quite as pretty as the Southern Living though!)
Loo-bear and Nana worked on the kids desserts together…(aren’t these the cutest little turkey cupcakes!)
THEN Loo-bear went back to her handy-work of making momma more potholders as we were running a little low (don’t we sound like we need to live on a farm;)???!!! You know I want to!)
I completely CRASHED with Isaac at 7:30pm! I woke up around 10pm ready to go…and Rico Suave and I went to Walmart to just be entertained by all the Black Friday craziness. We bought a few things ($4 football, $4 soccer ball, etc) but NOTHING compared to the craziness that was around us. I think we’re forever processing Africa…well, we have just about everything we need!!!
THEN–we went to Toys-R-Us and it was EVEN CRAZIER. There…we bought NOTHING because it was a mad house, and really–this might sound crazy…but our kids haven’t asked for anything and we aren’t going to just buy them things to buy them things. If you ask them what they want…they will say for mommy to be 100% so we can bring home another little one–and I think their priorities are pretty cool so I’m not going to mess that up by letting them think it’s normal to get a bunch of unnecessary loot. AND honestly–they don’t play with half of the things we ALREADY have…so we’ll be sticking to our “three gifts of Christmas”…we always give them THREE things (it’s Jesus’s birthday–he got 3 gifts…and wouldn’t that be funny to go to some one’s birthday party and give more gifts to someone other than the one whose birthday we were celebrating??!!! SOOO all that being said–we left Toys-R-Us empty handed as I didn’t see anything in there that more sweetly shape my children’s character. There was a line that WRAPPED AROUND THE STORE…and I kept thinking of where my fourth child is from…how little they have…and what a contrast it all was. And at that point…we left…for coffee. A midnight date with my man:)
We went and had some coffee in the mall and people watched. I *DID* force Rico Suave to buy a sweater for himself that was on sale. BECAUSE…oh my. That man only has sweaters from his HIGH SCHOOL and COLLEGE DAYS. YES–his sweaters are 10 years old and he wears them. And that are BAD. I convinced him how Rico Suave he’d look in one of those collar sweaters…and maybe this will be the year I can slowly sneak those old school sweaters away:). We did go in the Disney store and I twisted Rico Suave’s arm to go for the $4 Tow Mater and Lightning figurines for Isaac and Frank…the lady even came over to tell him it was a good deal. (HA! You just have to know my hubby and what a penny pincher he is!)
AND I did find two books for $5 (each) today at Kohl’s with Laney and I went for a little girl time. One of them, “It’s Time to Sleep My Love” reminded us of China…and we bought it to put in our hope chest for a little princess we hope to bring home from China one day…
The books sell for retail in bookstores, online, etc–but as part of the Kohl’s Cares program, which gives back to kid’s health care and educational initiatives to communities nationwide–you have quite the pick for $5. You can see the list HERE. We also got the book “Wherever you are my love will find you”…such a sweet book.
Hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving!!!
XOXO,
Andrea
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