You are looking at a dog with a plan.
He might not look too crafty, but he's sly like a fox!
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We celebrated our Thanksgiving in grand old style. Just the five of us with enough food to feed all of you. We liked being here alone. We barely got out of our jammies in time for dinner.
It was a good day.
We started the day with "Big Breakfast" (as we like to call it) with a twist ...
Gobble Gobble!
After breakfast, Sarah helped me make the pumpkin pies. She is a great helper. She was surprised to learn that there are more ingredients than just pumpkin in a pumpkin pie.
Her first comment about it? "I guess then we'd just have mushy cooked pumpkin in a pie shell." Then, after we started adding the rest of the ingredients she said, "Now I know why pumpkin pie tastes so delicious! It has TONS of sugar in it!"
After the pies were in the oven, Paige and Nate stepped in to help make the egg stuffing.
Their job was to make bread crumbs.
This job had three steps:
1. Tear bread
2. Put bread into food processor
3. Take turns pressing the button
After each of them had a turn at pushing the button they looked at each other with great pride and said, "We are really good at this!"
After the pies were out of the oven and the turkey and stuffing were in the oven we put the pies outside to cool down and the kids played ... as children often do.
(Lots of pie for five people, eh?)
Because of our recently
dead hamster, there was a lot of "let's pretend my name is Leo and I just died" kind of play happening. At one point, the girls buried Nate under a Costco-sized pile of paper towels and prayed over his dead body.
After the funeral they used the paper towels as play things in the moon bouncer. I'd certainly recommend a huge package of paper towels for that kid-who-has-everything on your list this year.
We also squeezed in some time to play board games ... well ... actually ... I didn't play the board games. Frank and the kids did. I cooked. I also failed at keeping up with the dishes and other random messes that were happening all around the joint. (I'll be keeping those photos to myself, thank you.)
After all of our playing and cooking we needed a snack. The tiny pies were calling our names. The kids couldn't stand the thought that there were five tiny pies sitting around being lazy. Five tiny pies that no one was eating. I have to admit. I agreed. They did look tasty. So ... we ate them. They were delicious.
That Sarah Gorman is quite a good cook. She is right, you know. All that sugar makes for a very tasty pie.
We ate the tiny ones and left the big ones out there for our dinnertime dessert.
You'll never guess what Frank was talking about the whole time we were eating our pies.
One guess?
You are wrong! (Unless you guessed 'displacement' ... in which case, I'm sorry to have accused you of being wrong ... in which case, I should say, "Good guess! Right on, psychic friend!")
Yes. He spent our snack talking about displacement. It was science hour in the Gorman kitchen. We learned how to give new life to withering, months-old birthday balloons with just a little dab of scotch tape. Yes, my friends. It's all about displacement. Easy peasy.
And. At one point, the dog was whining to go outside. That's how he talks to us. He whines. He stands by the door and whines when he wants to go out. He stands by his bowl and whines when he wants food our more water. He stands by the stairs when I stay up too late and he wants to go to bed. He's a whiner.
Add 'trickster' to the list because that's exactly what he is!
Mr. Riley whined to go outside. I asked Sarah to let him out. She did. That little rat went straight over to our pies and he ATE THEM! He ate our pie! He pretended to have to go outside just so that he could eat our pie. Sly fox.
So, we yelled at him and sent him to the dungeon and we mourned the loss of our pie. First the hamster and now the pie. Oy.
Luckily, one pie was completely unharmed. Dessert was saved! Woo hoo!
Finally, it was dinnertime. All of the cooking was done. I made the smallest turkey in town (9.5 pounds if you're curious), both of my grandma's stuffings, and all of the good stuff. I even went old school and stuffed some celery (because Nate loves celery and I thought he'd like it stuffed -- he didn't). No one wanted any of it. They would have preferred a dinner of only pie and sushi or maybe PB&J. Argh. No matter. At least I have some yummy leftovers to much on at lunchtime tomorrow!
Oh, did I mention that the I used a couple of bowls that were handmade by Lizzie -- including one that she just sent me for my birthday? Thanks, Liz!
Did I also mention that the girls made our tablecloth? I gave them a big piece of white paper and they decorated it. It was beautiful!
Gobble gobble!
