Thanksgiving

Yep, I'm posting about Thanksgiving on actual Thanksgiving.

We've settled on a new tradition at the Chapman household. We started it last fall. Last fall was so busy and crazy that I decided I didn't feel like cooking a huge Thanksgiving feast on the one day off I'd probably have that week.

So we ordered a meat and cheese tray from the deli and ate sandwiches while we had a movie marathon.

We liked it so much we did it again this year. Turns out I was right about Thanksgiving being my only day off this week. I was busy all day yesterday, and I'll be busy tomorrow and Saturday.

Just to be clear, I'm not anti-turkey or big feast. In fact, I'm sure I wouldn't mind doing a big dinner at all if I lived near my mom and my sisters. It wouldn't be a big chore if I was in the kitchen talking and laughing with my sisters and my mom. It's just a lot of work for Doug and I to do alone when our kids don't really care for a lot of the meal anyway.

So here's our Thanksgiving "feast."

I made more pies than this, but this was the only one we didn't cut last night for pie night and looked decently pretty. We have also been enjoying blueberry, apple, and cherry pie as well as a chocolate swirl cheesecake.

I also put a bunch of braids in Mary's hair while we watched this morning's feature Monsters, Inc. Amazingly Adam had not seen that before but really enjoyed it. 

Here we are enjoying Attack of the Clones (Star Wars II). Right now we're going to have some pie and then watch Captain America, Galaxy Quest, and The Avengers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween

So I'm slow with Halloween pictures. I'm busy or tired or more often than not some combination of both. You'd think I'd have more time on my hands with all the kids in school, but I still seem to be just as busy as ever if not more so.

Anyhoo... back to Halloween.

Our ward had a trunk or treat the weekend before Halloween. The kids got all dressed up. Mary was a pioneer girl using a costume my mom made for one of my sisters (or me) years ago. Alex was a black ninja. Adam was Harry Potter. I of course forgot to take pictures that night.

My sister Dani reminded me on Halloween to take pictures so I tried again, but Mary apparently didn't want to dress up again. So this is her NOT dressing up for me again.

We did carve pumpkins a few days before Halloween. Well some we carved, and some we decorated with stickers. We actually really haven't carved pumpkins with the kids before. We've done the stickers before and colored them with markers too. Alex was the one who really wanted to carve a pumpkin, but after he learned he had to scrape out the guts he wasn't too fond of it anymore. I had to do most of the cleaning for him.

 
This is Alex's. 

 
This is Doug's. We actually grew this one in our own garden.

 
This is mine. It also came from our garden. Yep, the picture is blurry, but in this case the blurry makes it look even better in my opinion.

 
This is Adam's.

And if you couldn't guess, this one is Mary's. 

 And since apparently I can't make the pictures upload in the order I've actually wanted and because I'm too lazy to start again, you get to see the finished product first.

We didn't do much on actual Halloween. Mary had homework to do that took quite a bit of time. Plus they'd already gotten candy from the trunk or treat. The extent of our celebrating was drinking Orange Crush with pumpkin shaped ice cubes. Even the Orange Crush was accidental. I happened to find myself in King Soopers one Monday in October and discovered I could get a free bottle of Orange Crush since Erik Decker scored a touchdown for the Broncos the day before. Sometimes it just pays to be lucky.