Two Little Men: 11/21/10

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Henry's Birthday Party

Henry wanted to have his friends over to our house for his birthday this year. We had 4 friends from school and also Luke.

We made Toy Story candy necklaces.

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I made snacks for the grownups.

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I made a very simple cake from a box with homemade buttercream icing. The moms were all so excited about the homemade icing. You could tell we've all been to lots of parties with grocery store cakes. Which are just fine and do the job. But I just was in the mood to make one this year.

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The weather was gorgeous, and they played a lot out in the backyard.

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Friday, November 26, 2010

School Carnival

Leo's school has a little carnival fundraiser on a Friday around Halloween. This year, Mr. Independent (Leo) went off to socialize and do his own thing....so Henry and I were on our own. Henry is not quite old enough for most of the games and is a bit overwhelmed by all the big kids, so we didn't do too much.

We did eat some cotton candy.

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They also had face painting by the high school art department. It was ok, but it was pretty anticlimactic after the face painting we are accustomed to at the ecpta carnival. Humph.

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Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thankgiving 2010

This was my first year to cook the whole Thanksgiving meal, and I was pretty excited to try it out. I viewed it all as an experiment, so I wasn't going to be terribly upset if something didn't work out.

We had a very relaxed day, and it was wonderful. I was so behind on laundry, so Todd and I worked on that a lot this morning. Right now, that is a huge time commitment in our family. We were in casual clothes and sweats all day, and I never even put on makeup.

This was my turkey. It was covered in a paste of dry mustard, vinegar, worcestershire, and something else I can't remember. Then bacon on top and some veggies stuffed inside. Oh, and big evil hunks of butter. This recipe comes from a "famous" cookbook from Monroe.

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Then when it was cooked, it was supposed to be covered in a cheesecloth soaked in olive oil.

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And here it is when it came out. I basted over the cheesecloth - it looks like a nasty bandage at this point.

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Somehow I don't have a picture of the turkey without the cheesecloth. It was pretty!

Here are my rolls - they were half whole wheat and half white flour. It is a recipe that Carla recommended. Well....they had to rise a little too long b/c both ovens were busy....so they turned into muffin rolls.

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Todd carving the turkey. He watched a YouTube video to learn how to do it.

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Cheese grits. This is an old family recipe from my Grandmother Mildred, but Kraft has stopped making the cheese that this required. So this year I tried Velveeta, and it turned out great. It is a little difference consistency....that's the reason why it got so brown - I was trying to get it to firm up. But it was firm enough.

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Roasted Brussels Sprouts and New Potatoes. I was planning to do these separately, but it got down to the wire. This is also the "Betsy photography technique" - get as close as possible to the subject!