Saturday, November 26, 2016

Favorite Things

It is quiet and very warm in our living room tonight.  All the current occupants are quietly pursuing their, well, favorite pastimes sounds so nice, but the only one who's really doing that is Zane, he is playing Pokemon.  I enjoy blogging but it isn't my favorite, nor is the puzzle Jim is working on, his.  
It will be chilly in all the other rooms of the house when we go to bed because the thermostat is close enough to the fireplace that the furnace doesn't run when we have a good fire.  
We got a little snow last week.  Just enough to say we got some.  


I love to take photos of the boys playing together.  The tablet that Barry wanted to use is plugging in and charging at this moment, and for some reason wouldn't start up to let him play. It usually does.  So, he is watching Christian sing his nursery rhymes and children's songs.  I think they are working together on their choices.  That kind of behavior deserves a photo, since it is hardly the norm, in this house or anywhere else.  



Thanks giving has come and gone within that week as well.  We had a lovely dinner with all our kids at home.  Usually my folks are here, but they went down to Texas to eat their turkey with my brother and his family.  That was different.  I missed Mom's help in the kitchen, and the pies she brings.  I didn't have enough pie pans and had to scrounge a disposable, thin aluminum one.  I didn't miss her after the meal, since Lynette who sometimes regrets the fact that she is an adult now, very willingly takes over part of the work.  She knows my kitchen and my ways and is so very helpful.  

Besides the turkey, the star of the show was our little Paislee.  She likes sleeping at home better than anywhere else so she complained a bit.  It means she got a lot of holding from aunts and uncles and Gramma and Papa.  The turkey is another story.  





We have a grill that has a rotisserie feature.  It works very well on chickens, but we are having a little trouble with turkeys.  Last year our turkey cooked faster than we expected, and this year is took longer.  Last year we didn't have a 22-pound turkey which confused the matter of cooking time, but earlier in the morning, it looked like it was cooking too quickly so Jim turned down the grill and then went and played with the grandsons and forgot all about checking it.  As our guests were assembling, ready for turkey, our bird was a long way from done, so Jim turned UP the grill and a half hour after our expected eating time we served up our blackened bird.  We really did plan to have it done an hour ahead and let it sit.j And under the burnt skin was a good turkey.  Our family ate of it avidly and took copious amount home with them.  It was not a failure, it is the stuff stories are made of.  Long after this thanksgiving, those boys will remember Papa's playing and not a burnt turkey.  


The windows in our house don't produce good photographs, but here we all are, gathered together. 



It doesn't really seem like November is really over, if we are going by this warmer weather.  The high temps were in the 50's on Friday and Jim went to the farm to cut some wood.  Lorene and her family met him there.




Jim brought Zane home for the weekend.  Zane and I made a plan to make these little goodies beforehand.  The recipe was in the "Little Green" magazine using green and yellow m&m's to make tractor wheels.  We snitched three little packets of m&m's from the enormous stash of Halloween candy at the Miller's.  I bought mini pretzels, and Hershey's kisses.  


Zane peeled kisses and I put them on the pretzels. Three minutes in the oven and they were ready for the m&m's.  
We DID NOT eat the two missing m&m's. Zane counted 43, then 41, then 47, which we took for our final m&m count, but there were really only 45.


It's harder than you might think to pick up small pieces of candy and smoosh them onto melty chocolate kisses.  Therefore, we have a few smudges and off center ones.  



And last, but not least...

Baby Love.





P.S. We're sending this boy home slightly different than when he came to us.




1 comment:

Anita said...

You two are doing a great job making special memories for those kids! I didn't spend lots of time with my grandparents when I was little but I remember nearly everything we did. They're the perfect age for making memories that will be sharp and clear for years. (And P.S. neither of my grandfathers played with us -it sounds strange to me even now. Hurray for Jim!)