Thanksgiving Leftovers

So after 2 days of eating Thanksgiving dinner, I finally couldn't handle the last of the leftovers! So on the 3rd day for lunch Hubby helped me make potato pancakes and "chinese" turkey, it was delicious! Sadly I forgot to take a picture....

Then for dinner, I got creative!

We took the rest of the stuffing and gravy, mixed them with some parmesan cheese and added a little more turkey stock (homemade from the bones of the thanksgiving turkey) to soften it and added the chopped up stems from the mushrooms.

The mushroom caps baked (opening down) for 10 min @ 400 degrees.

Then we stuffed the caps and baked them for another 20 mins. Soo delicious!!

I might make more stuffing soon, just so I can make these. It really was that good!

After the stuffing stuffed mushrooms, all we had left was the green bean casserole and a little turkey... It wasn't enough to make a meal, unless I added something. So we made rice and then thinned out the casserole with a bit more milk, mixed them all together and I think we have a new dish!

I just have to come up with a name.... any ideas???

So today, we have no more leftovers... our lunch was tuna or PB&J.

Dinner will be Salisbury Steaks with mushroom and onion gravy, and some scalloped potatoes.

Tomorrow we might still be tired of poultry, but by the next day I think we will again eat chicken or turkey :)

You can bet, I'm already looking forward to Christmas dinner, and the leftovers from that!!

Thanksgiving!!

What a wonderful way to start the super early day! Daddy made breakfast :)

Then we got the turkey cleaned, and "stuffed" with carrots, onion, celery, fresh sage and thyme. Covered in butter and s&p. Then we put it in a bag, on a rack, in the pan. Phew!

That is our first turkey!!

The girls thought it sounded so good, they were already wanting to eat Thanksgiving!!

The rest of the morning, the girls hung out with Daddy (when he wasn't helping), and we got the rest of dinner cooking by 11:30am! So with things just finishing up (and waiting for the turkey drippings so I could make gravy), we left Hubby in charge of food, and I took the girls upstairs to clean up and get dressed... We came down to a beautifully set table :)

Homemade Sourdough Stuffing!! My new Favorite! Shh, I think it's better than my mom's, who before this year has the ONLY stuffing I ever liked!

Homemade Pecan Pie, in a homemade crust.

Hillbilly Green Beans... (thanks again for the recipe mom - he decided he wanted it made with ham and fresh green beans, so I had to start it the day before), these are so yummy they are requested to be a new family favorite!

Smashed Potatoes (homemade mashed potatoes with the skins still on), always a staple! With yes, that's Whole Berry, Cranberry Sauce. Sadly I was the only one who liked it... but with ground clove like my dad taught me, it was wonderful!

The turkey! mmmmm, juicy :)

Homemade Green Bean Casserole with Hubby's Home fried "french" onions!  With a new favorite here, Pecan topped Sweet Potatoes.

Thanks to Butterfly and my mom, we had homemade pumpkin pies! You know it wouldn't be the holidays without pumpkin pie!

 

The girls had to try out the turkey leg, Butterfly knew what to do, but Ladybug had to explore it first! 

That was our Thanksgiving!

We had it for lunch, then we ate the leftovers "as is" for the rest of the day, and the whole next day!

Preparing for Thankgsgiving...

This year was a lot of firsts for us!
The celebration of 1 whole year in our new house; Ladybug's first Thanksgiving; my first one cooking the whole dinner; our first "just us" Family Thanksgiving (except that we were again, sadly missing Doodle...); and our first "junk-free" or mostly homemade Thanksgiving!

So we started the day before, Hubby had to work, so I called in some reinforcements, LOL!

Butterfly and her friend, Fish, to do the real cleaning :)

Puppy came to share lunch with Ladybug, while Butterfly and Fish ate too :)

Then Butterfly and Fish played soccer...

sliding, and...

Butterfly even pushed Fish on the swings!

Of course, Puppy kept Ladybug busy too! All so I could have a kid-free kitchen to clean up, make pie crusts and start preparing everything I needed for Thanksgiving!

Changes and Additions

So it's been a while......
I'm only a little sorry, see it just so happens that our life totally changed immediatly after my last post. Our little Ladybug who was working towards sleeping through the night and was starting to follow her older sister's social butterfly ways, suddenly became a clingy child that would not sleep for anything!

This hit at the same time that we were hit with separate but very impacting news/fights? about each of our ex's trying to make our life more difficult (did they meet, talk and conspire together?) through the older children... who already have soo much to deal with! Can't we just play nice until they are adults and we don't have to have contact anymore?

Well, soon after, Ladybug started crawling... and said "DADA"... and then cruising.... and so we thought things would get better!

They haven't :(

Soo, then we looked into other things, all the while trying to find ways to up my milk supply which despite her nursing every 45 mins to 2 hours was diminishing... after seriously over producing with my first daughter, this made no sense to me!

Then,

my husband asked the forbidden question!

I had to indulge,

I had to show him he was wrong,

I had to.....

I had to test..

and so....

we learned...

that we are expecting a new baby!!

We sat on the news, absorbing the idea of children just over a year apart...

There is a 6 yr gap between Doodle & Butterfly, a 4 yr gap between Butterfly and Ladybug (yes a 10 yr gap between Doodle and Ladybug) so this "gap" doesn't feel like one at all.
We will soon be parents to an 11 yr old, a 5 yr old, a 1 yr old, and a newborn!

By soon, I mean in about 6 months...

Yes - we will find out our Baby's gender
NO - we will not try for another homebirth
Yes - the baby will be born in the hospital but without all the interventions
and finally
Yes -this is our last time.

Sad, yet freeing...

With such spacings between our children, we are ready to move out of baby stages and on with child stages. We want to enjoy all of our children, and give them all wonderful FAMILY memories. We want them all to enjoy each other and we want to have the ability to spend time with each of them.

So our current "family project" is to totally rearrange the house, changing almost every room in the house, preparing not only for this baby, but for the family time and projects that we want to start or continue.
Wish us luck :) and don't take it personal if you know me in real life and I don't have time to hang out, I promise it's not you, it's life... but I'm sure this trying time will take it's toll on many friendships and I guess I'm ready for that... I just hope that I still have a few when this time is over!

promises, promises....

About 10 days ago, our baby turned 6 months old. She is pulling up and trying to stand, crawling backwards, head-scooting, rolling, rocking and jabbering like crazy.
She is such an amazing little girl and brings so much joy to our lives!!

So we kept our promise to the kids (that they begged us to make when we told them we were pregnant) and got another dog. An English Lab mix puppy. He's 7 weeks old and we named him Moose since we are pretty sure that he will be bigger than the 2 dogs we have; a Basset Hound named Sammy that's 2yrs and a Beagle/Jack Russel/Akita/Welsh Corgi mix named Colby that's also 2 yrs.

Housebreaking is definatly m least favorite part, but he's not doing too bad!! He's still having a rough time sleeping alone, but our other 2 are crate trained so we are trying to do the same with him. Poor little guy would much rather sleep with us, but since he isn't fully house trained yet, it isn't an option.

Colby who protected me from other dogs during the pregnancy and won't let other dogs near his food is having the hardest time with Moose. He is willing to share food, but still tries to protect the baby from the puppy.

Sammy is excited to have him around to play and gets frustrated when the puppy tires out before he does.

All 3 kids are in love, and I think we found a great new addition to our family   : D

I love you....

A definition:
Love is both an action and a feeling. Love is a profoundly tender, warm, loyal, personal, deep affection for another person.
The diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even to compare to other emotional states.

A little background:
 1 - I am trying to work through anxiety (more on that some other time) so right now when I feel an attack coming on I will try to get away by myself to calm down after some really dumb arguments made me learn the beginning of an attack.
 2 - We are trying to find a balance between Doodle's lack of rules at his other house and the basic rules we have here. For him and for consistency with all other children in the house. Without treating him "like a child."

  So last night, events during family dinner were leading me towards an anxiety attack, but I was trying to calm myself while finishing without bothering anyone. *It didn't work, so I will excuse myself next time.* Doodle asked for more salad and then a few bites in decided he was done and didn't want to finish. This was following both Daddy and I repeatedly reminding Butterfly that she had to finish her dinner. He got up to throw his in the trash.
  The stream of possible senarios all turned badly in my head so I quietly stormed upstairs. Doodle got upset by this and cried to Daddy that "she hates me".
When I was told this I had almost calmed myself, so rather than having myself a pity party like I wanted to I tried to put Doodle's needs before my own.
Ladybug had just fallen asleep so I put her in her crib, put Butterfly in her room to play after shutting the door and telling her to wait until we came to get her, and asked Daddy to have the 3 of us talk.
It was emotional, but we needed to get some more cards on the table.
Sadly, Doodle has to be let in on some "adult" issues due to the circumstances so that he can understand the reasons behind some of our actions and goals. A little into the conversation, I told Doodle that I love him, and gave him some compliments.... I thought he knew that, I half expected him to (like a teenager) tell me that I didn't, or roll his eyes, say "ok", nod, or ignore it altogether... it's not like I expected him to say it back!

I was blown away and am still confused by his reaction; he cried and ran away.

I guess he wasn't expecting that; especially then, and I guess he didn't know that.
His reaction made me realize some things, made me think, and makes me want to be not only a better mom, but a better person. I feel badly that I've never told him that before. I feel horrible that I wasn't showing it enough to him.

It makes me wonder: - Does he not hear it that much? - Does he not take compliments well? - What does he really think of me and how I feel about him? - Will this change things? If so, how? - Why did I not make it clear sooner?

To be honest, I can't see my life without him anymore.
He's my son! Yes, he was given to me by marriage only a year and a half ago and may not be here all the time, but I worry about him and miss him and wish for more time with him. I have a very strong desire to help him reach his full potential and become a wonderful young man.

That being said, I now feel that I should find better ways to show him how much I really do love him. I think it's fair to say that's a normal struggle with a 10 yr old. It's not like I can just pick him up and go snuggle with him like I do with little ones. I can't take him to go play baseball (I can't play so it would be NO fun, and who would watch the girls?).
So what can I do and how can I show him that I love him for him?
Not just because he's my husband's son and my daughters' brother?
I love Doodle because he makes me laugh (like his dad), he makes me smile, he makes me think. He can talk his way into or out of many things, he's passionate about things he loves, he's fiercly protective of his sisters, he's bright, and trusting, and gentle. He's inquisitive and doesn't accept simple answers from me. He's amazing at baseball and just a great kid that (unless he's sucked into a video game) doesn't like to have a dull moment.
He's really just irreplaceable, and last night made me realize that I need to let him know that a little better.

one week...

This week we have a lot planned, housework though I've been struggling with it is getting pushed to the side, and we are staying busy.
Doodlebug is here, ALL WEEK LONG!!!!!
You could feel the buzz of excitement contained in that news for days before he came :) We have all been looking forward to it. An extended time to spend with him!
Usually he is only here for a few days, and quickly tires of the young girls' antics and cries. This time its different. While he does restate "it's going to be a looong week" each time one of his sisters makes an unhappy noise... he has initiated play times with each of them!
This week, I am loving having all 3 of our kids and trying to stay in the moment, not get caught up wishing that every week is like this <3