Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. Stephen's parents and his brother David and sister-in-law Janet with their five children came up for the holiday. Maude and Van arrived on Tuesday, and we did a major shopping trip that afternoon for groceries. David and Janet drove all night Tuesday and arrived Wednesday morning. During the day on Wednesday, we cooked to prepare for the holiday and some of us made a trip to Chuck E Cheese's in the evening. Thursday morning was filled with cooking for the fabulous dinner. The menu consisted of turkey, mashed potatoes, twice baked potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes with apples, twice baked sweet potatoes, cornbread stuffing with cranberries, herb stuffing, greens beans with bacon and feta, homemade rolls, homemade cranberry sauce, jalepeno cranberry relish, and spinach salad with pumpkin pie or pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. It was quite the feast, and we still have lots of leftovers! Then Thursday afternoon, we headed to the movie to see Enchanted while Grandpa stayed home with Benjamin and Ariel. I loved the movie, and it was a perfect family movie for the holiday. Friday, we headed for the zoo. It was a bit chilly, a high of 46 degrees, but very fun. I now have a cold so this will be short and sweet so I can take some Nyquil and go to bed. Enjoy the pictures!

Fall Leaves Fun

Here are some pictures of that we took of Benjamin playing in the fall leaves in a park near where we live. Benjamin had a great time kicking the leaves and running around!

Fall Leaves

Coconut Cupcakes

The other day at a high-end grocery store we just found, I saw that they had box mixes made by the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten, from Food Network. One of the mixes was for coconut cupcakes. The price was astounding at $10.99 for a box, which was just the dry ingredient I might add of flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. I thought to myself that I could find that recipe online because I remembered seeing the episode where she made them. Then yesterday my niece Megan posted some links to some pictures and recipes of gourmet cupcakes, and I got inspired to try to coconut cupcake recipe. After nap today, Benjamin and I made them. The recipe was a bit too complicated to have him next to me the whole time, so he went off to play in the middle and then came back to scoop the batter in the cupcake liners. I also had dinner in the oven so it was a bit tricky to keep track of everything. We ate them tonight for our Family Home Evening treat. They were so delicious -really amazing. Stephen's reaction was that he thought that it was absolutely the best cupcake that he had ever had. Here is the recipe for Coconut Cupcakes. The only adjustment that I made was that I only made a third of the frosting and it was plenty- I just couldn't imagine needing three sticks of butter to frost 24 cupcakes. Enjoy! You won't be disappointed!

Happy Birthday Daddy! Happy Birthday Stephen!

"Happy Birthday message. I want to write Daddy's name. He starts with a
'da' 'da' 'da' 'D.' Happy Birthday Daddy. I love you message. I like Daddy. He give me big squeeze. That's all the words I need for Daddy."
Love, Benjamin

I love you! I am so grateful to have you in my life. I love you because you are a wonderful, caring, kind, and considerate person. I hope that you have a wonderful birthday!

Love, me

Halloween

We had some great Halloween activities this week and a very fun day yesterday. Here are some of the highlights in a new slideshow format that I found. Hope you enjoy.

Make your own slide shows and scrapbooks