Before November Ends

I haven't written on my blog in forever, and I promised myself that no matter what I would get at least one post done for the month of November, and seeing that it's the last day of the month, I suppose today's the day to get it done. (I just realized that was a seriously long sentence, ha.) It simply isn't fair for me to try to condense my whole life from the past few months into one small post, so I'll just give some highlights and write further about said highlights in separate posts!

November 2012 marked Jeremiah and I's first Thanksgiving that we celebrated as a married couple! :-) We decided to have our own little dinner together before heading to my parents' house to celebrate with them and the siblings. 'Twas very fun. Here are a few pics from the Husband and I's dinner.

Our turkey didn't fit in our oven (we use our toaster oven as our oven! Works out better than it sounds ;)) So the Husband came up with the idea of putting our deep fryer to use for half the turkey, and then putting the other half in the oven! We didn't want our apartment smelling like deep fried turkey for a month, so the fryer ended up on a chair outside until it was done! Turned out tasty, by the way. 

That first item is cake. The Husband woke up early just to make it. And he ate the whole thing himself. That's a normal occurrence in our household, lol.

Days and days and days and days and days and days of LEFTOVERS!!!

Awww, I smile just by looking at it. We enjoyed putting it all together for ourselves. We ended up eating around 5 something pm, which is late for him, early for me! We probably would've eaten earlier, but we took advantage of his day off work by have a nap together before getting too into cooking. :-)

Blurry, but I love it! And we matched! I have the best husband.

And again.

And again.

And, yes, again.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures while we were at my family's house, but we had a great time there too! Plus my padre was in town from work, so it was truly a family celebration. After the eating and talking and fellowship was done, me, my older sis, her husband, one of my younger bros, and my younger sis headed to the mall for the Black Friday festivities. I guess it wasn't so festive for my little sis since she had to work... But I must say it was rather freeing for me this year to not have to worry about rushing from Thanksgiving dinner to the mall to work retail! 

Anyways, while at the mall, my older sister and I went to TJMaxx (yes, the one store with no sales on Black Friday because everything is always on sale...go figure!). We browsed and browsed and ended up in the baby section, and she blessed me and the husband with our first sets of onesies for baby girl! Yup, I'm pregnant, 23 weeks today :-) I wish I had pictures of the adorable little outfits since they're so freakin' adorable (so nice, I said it twice!..lame, ha!! You loved it though.), but I shall share some other time. Here I am on Thanksgiving Day:

Anywho, that's all for now! Much has happened over the past few months, but that's all I feel like writing about at the moment. Don't worry, I won't disappear for another five months. Maybe just five days. :-)

Thanksgiving Comes 365 Days A Year

I had such a great Thanksgiving with my family! Unfortunately, my hermanita and her husband weren't with us this year, but my boo and I got to do most of the food prep this year together, which kinda made up for that, haha. Even though we should be thankful every single day out of the year, it is extra special to have a day set aside to celebrate the manifold blessings the Lord pours out on us! No matter our circumstances, the sovereignty of God alone is a reason to rejoice and give thanks! 

Elijah made the green bean casserole this year, and it turned out delicious!!! Making it is pretty straightforward ...unless of course your can opener is broken. Ahhh!! Thanksgiving day issues!! Well the Favorite was able to put his knife skills to the test, and at a safe distance I watched as he chopped open the can of green beans, hehehe. 'Twas quite entertaining, I must say. Just glad he didn't lose any appendages!!

He was so intent on it!! How adorable. :) 

I made cranberry sauce from scratch, as I have been for the past few years now. Turned out tasty, but for whatever reason the two bags of cranberries I got from the store made sooo much more sauce than it has in years past!! Weird... Funny story though -  When the Favorite and I went to the store to get the cranberries, as we were approaching the produce section, all of a sudden A BIRD FLEW OUT OF THE GRAPES!! Yes, there was a bird in the grocery store, hiding out in the grapes, eating them! Guess we scared it off! We just looked at each other and busted out laughing. I'm still chuckling to myself now just thinking about it!!

We decided to go the pre-cooked turkey route, primarily thanks to the hermanita and brother in law getting our turkey for us! I am SO glad it was precooked too, because I really wasn't feeling like putting in the work this year to do it from scratch, hehe. It was really quite tasty, though. Yay Butterball!

Now, check out these before and after pics of these rolls we get every year! You butter them, let them thaw, let them rise, then bake them!! We ended up letting them rise for a SUPER long time so they went from 

THIS...

to THIS....

Hahah!! They were pretty much swelling up over the pan! It was fun to poke them though; they were definitely the most abnormally plush rolls I've ever had! Tasted really good fresh out the oven though!

Pretty much all the food is ready to eat....

Mr. Turkey and Mrs. Ham....

Joshua planted himself right in front of the turkey, and I can't say I blame him! I was ready to eatttt....

My hubby to be is just too cute. :)

Erin's home from Howard for Thanksgiving break!! Not to into taking pics right now... but once the food's getting served, smiles pop up all around!! 

My mommy is so pretty! And she got her braces off! Look at that sparkly white smile! :-D

Daddy insisted on getting some dishes done RIGHT before we were about to eat!! Typical, hehe. He's looking forward to dinner, too, especially since we were eating around 5:30 instead of our typical late dinner :-/ 

Smiles :-)

Yep, that's my plate. And that's not even all the food!! That's just all I could fit on my plate at the time... (sidenote, my dad makes the BEST sweet potatoes in the WORLD!!)

Our food preferences are quite different, and we're still learning to adjust! But included a few of my Favorite's  choices on the Thanksgiving menu this year, so yay :)

She kept trying to sneak extra ham!! But I caught her in the act ;-)

There's me!! Haven't quite made a dent in my food yet though... 

Falling into a food coma... 

The Favorite is falling into a food coma, too! 

I HAD to make some ice blue raspberry lemonade koolaid :)

Erin and Daddy having fun dancing off the food! :) So sweet.

Hope all of my readers also had a FANTASTIC Thanksgiving this year!! Anything special happen? What'd you do? I'd love to hear! Next up...CHRISTMAS! :-)

O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!!  ~Psalm 30:12b

Clearly I'm Losing It

Written earlier today! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! :) 

Someone pinch me. Please. Actually, scratch that. Whenever I actually tell someone to pinch me and they make a motion to do so, that's usually a good enough dose of reality for me, ha.

I CAN'T BELIEVE TOMORROW IS THANKSGIVING DAY!!

There. I got it out. See, I knew Thanksgiving was tomorrow, in my head. (I mean, where else would you know it?) But then it hit me. WHAM!!!! Yeah, it was THAT big, all caps with extra exclamation points.

TOMORROW IS THANKSGIVING!

Okay so by this point you're probably wondering if there's a point to this post, and I'm beginning to question that myself as a matter of fact. Hmm...

*insert Jeopardy music*

Well guys, after some pondering I've figured out why the fact that THANKSGIVING IS TOMORROW!!! is so startling to me. It really goes to show how quickly time flies! This time last year, I was not in the best state. I had a broken relationship, both with God and the Favorite, which was extra emotional but a huge period of growth for me (which, looking back, I can say I'm extremely grateful for!). This time last year I was finishing out a semester in school, and I haven't been back since! This time last year, I was 20 (ha!) and I was living with a close friend in DC. So many changes! I've had so many ups and downs and arounds since last Thanksgiving, and now I look back and I'm just struck with the reality that all those months have passed between then and now, never to be returned to! (...not that I want to return lol...and sorry for my serious run-on sentence!)

In the midst of all these things, both past and present, I can always find way more things to be thankful for than anything else. I just have an incredible amount of GRATEFULNESS and THANKFULNESS to God for His sovereignty in every situation I've faced! In my life, EVERY day is Thanksgiving. :)

Photo courtesy of Google Images

....well, except for the giant meal.