Turkey, stuffing, & sweet potato pie

For nicer meals, I appreciate a well set table as much as I appreciate the food that is served on it. Here was our Thanksgiving Table. I wish the picture showed our personalized embroidered napkins! After the meal, the adults were meticulously perousing our Black Friday ads and making lists of our own...this is where we found S!!

And while everyone else prepared the meals, read the paper, & chatted amongst ourselves, this is what the boys did--

Wii are obssessed!

So the hot Christmas talk around our house from all FOUR boys is about who will be getting a Wii (the new video game system, for you old-timers). On the way to school this morning, the conversation went something like this: "Well mom, the Herndons are getting a Wii." "Sarah and Emma are getting a Wii." "Mom, even Michael is getting a Wii!"

--Ah, ha! My in...

"Well boys, Michael is an only child. Would you rather have brothers, or a Wii?" As the oldest, F smiled at me and replied dutifully, "Brothers, of course." As middle child, G expressing in his --Tell it like it is Dr. Phil mentality--cried, "No brothers--I want a Wii!!," as he chortles his evil villian laugh.

There will be no laughter in the house on Christmas morning when the Wii is nowhere to be found, and we return to a simpler time...(did that sound "dickens-y" enough in it's tone of Christmas despair?)

This and Survivor China--I know we are the last ones who still care

So several months ago I mentioned our new favorite thing was Karaoke Revolution. Since then we have had a karaoke party and several midweek stop-ins from friends to "sing a few," not to mention some very late nights for Jack and I. (Once Finn even came down and told us to be quiet because we woke him up! Oops.)
Our dear friends Jon and Stephanie come in this weekend where literally, Jack threw out his voice singing, "You make me feel like a natural woman."

It reminded me that before my sister Summer left for school, she was over and Jack and I were having a duet knockout round to, "Material Girl." Summer recorded us on her phone and put our performance as her ringtone. The next day at Starbucks, her boss came up to her and said, "I think your phone is dying or something, it keeps making this awful sound!"

How can something we are so bad at, still be so much fun!

Is what you make who you are?

So my Jack was telling me about my sister-in-laws blog and a recipe she had recently posted. In a funny twist of fate, as I was making the same thing for dinner that night (the new chill in the air must translate to comfort food universally): Chicken Pot Pie.

Her ingredients list contained things like rotisserie chicken, shallots, fresh parsley, handmade pie crust, white wine, etc.

Here are my ingredients (all four of them): chicken found at the back of the fridge, cream of chicken soup, whatever veggies from the freezer don't have freezer burn, and a can of pop-top biscuits (sorry you weren't home to pop them, Jack!).

The contrast of the two "pies" made me laugh (was the laughter to hide my tears?). Although, I don't dare ask the question, "Which of the 2 McKinley sister-in-laws would you rather dine with?" I think I know the answer.

Dr. Frankenstien not Frankenstein

For Halloween this year, I was Dr. Frankenstien, not to be confused with my lab partner, Dr. Frankenstein. My laboratory experimental cake walk was so almost spooky...

I passed out prescription bottles with chocolate eyeballs and the label:

Prescribed by Dr. Frankenstien, Dosage: 3 eyeballs daily to cure the Halloween Frights!

Past the age where I can convince them what to be (I thought the 3 musketeers would have been great, or a band of vikings, or even have them dress up as my "botched experiments," but I had no takers...), this is what we ended up with: Frog, Wizard, and Ladybug!

The kids were so antsy to get going, we put them in their costumes and rode scooters and skateboards until it got a little darker (but not much)! We also wound up with so much candy we can probably just dump it into stockings at Christmas and call it a day. And in an inconvenient twist of irony, I scheduled dental appointments for all the boys today--the day after Halloween. Who does that?

Here are the boys with their jacko-o-lanterns. F's is self-titled, "Vampire," G's is "a bad guy." G wanted to pose making the face of his pumpkin--F barely wanted to take the picture at all.

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