thanksgiving

The night before Thanksgiving, Teresa took me out to walk around her yard and gather clippings for the table centerpiece.

Let me just say, someday I hope to have this--a yard where I can just walk outside and get magnolia, berries, fall leaves, olive branches, and hydrangeas, all just right there in my own yard.

So beautiful.

Thursday morning Kent helped his dad cut down several trees that had died on their property over the summer.  

Nicholas and Ellie and I sat in the back of the pickup truck, watching, and riding along as they hauled the trees down to the burn pile.  

At one point, we hit a bump and Nicholas shouted in glee "Yee haw!  Cowboy fan!" 

Once again, I was reminded that I really have no idea what goes on in that boy's head.

I was in charge of making the rolls for the dinner.
I used the same roll recipe I've always used.  I've made it at least 100 times, and it always turns out.

But, since it was for Thanksgiving dinner, of course I somehow killed the yeast on my second batch; they didn't rise at.all.  
So I made biscuits too.
And later, as I was rolling out the dough for the rolls, I realized that instead of putting in six Tb of butter and reserving 2 Tb, I'd reversed it and put in 2 and reserved 6....
oops.

Amazingly (Thanksgiving miracle), both roll batches and my biscuits turned out mostly okay.

Kent's brother Denver and Bree, us, and his uncle John, Libby, Ashlee and Mikayla.  

After dinner we went on a "turkey hunt."  
Like an Easter egg hunt.  Only you're finding bags with turkeys on them.
Nicholas is still talking about the turkey hunt and how much fun it was.

Ellie slept right through the Thanksgiving meal and the turkey hunt, so after she woke up we took her outside to find her turkeys, and then she got to eat her very own feast, at the big table all by herself.