This Week at Our House # 48 Thanksgiving 2019

We had our first week of our winter and holiday vacation. I think we were all happy about the freedom of no school. Unlike when we were in public school, we aren't exhausted by the time vacation comes around, so I got us to work on other things.

Monday we did yard and house repairs. Tuesday it rained, and I had a bad eye infection so we stayed in the house and played games and studied languages until the afternoon when I took Kate, Joseph, Sam, and Gideon to the stores to do the Thanksgiving shopping.

Wednesday, it rained some more. We did not make pies for Thanksgiving, so it was a fairly easy cooking day. Rachel made french bread for stuffing, Kate made pumpkin rolls, and I made cranberry sauce and John's favorite jello salad.

Thursday, the sun came out and the wind was blowing steady and strong. We cooked for Thanksgiving as well as taking care of several loads of laundry. We are still only hanging laundry outside to dry, so rainy weeks can be tough. Thursday was a perfect drying day, though.

Kate and I got the turkey stuffed and in the oven and ribs rubbed and in the crock pot by about 11am. Then we rested, played and did laundry. The kids played games together. I wrote and played with the little ones.

After about two hours, I gathered people to peel squash and potatoes and make orange rolls. When we were part way into that, I checked in the oven, and the turkey was finished. It sat out waiting for another two hours while we got everything else cooked.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at 4pm. We moved our table out into the living room so that there was room for the family around the table. We all sat together and that was nice. Instead of saying what we are all thankful for, we said what we thought Ruth was thankful for. That was pretty fun. This was the first Thanksgiving with Ruth after three years. Ruth was thankful to have orange rolls for thanksgiving for the first time in three years.

John and Sam loved the ribs most of all. Susan ate turkey, black olives, and several glasses of sparkling grape juice and the flavored ginger ale I bought. Rachel loved the mashed squash most of all. Joseph, Adam, and Johnny now willingly eat John's jello salad. He's had that mostly to himself for 21 years. John was a bit surprised when he did not have his bowl full of leftovers.

Josh and Joseph got the drumsticks. That is the most sought after part of the turkey in our house. Joseph ate all of his, and Josh had a lot leftover.

Arwen only liked the turkey and the drinks, I believe Arwen and Susan both asked for bowls of cold cereal and nutella on bread later in the day. Johnny has similar sentiments about Thanksgiving food, except that he has a boy appetite now.

As tradition, Johnny got teased for saying, "Mom, this is the most disgusting dinner you have ever made," on Thanksgiving when he was 4.

Gideon slept through the entire meal, and then spent the rest of the day grumpy until we pulled out the ice cream sundays around 9pm.

All in all, we had a nice family day. We enjoyed cooking together and sitting together, and eating together and playing and cleaning together. I love my peaceful family.