Thanksgiving and my assistant bakers

For Thanksgiving this year we stayed in PA and celebrated with Patrick's family. I had a couple of assistants to help with the baking this year. We were in charge of desserts, including a birthday cake for cousin Evan. For the grown ups, we made key lime cheesecake. (Wow - it was intense!) We have been trying out some fun non-traditional recipes for the past few years because some of us don't like pumpkin.

They love to help!

We also made a chocolate cake and then made a batch of cupcakes - I needed a little extra cake to build some ramps for Evan's monster truck cake. Here's what we did with the rest of the cupcakes:

(not my photo - I forgot to take pictures of them)

I made Evan's cake the night before, and set out everything to finish assembling it when we got there. Unfortunately, when we got to Diane's house for Thanksgiving, we realized we had everything with us EXCEPT the cake! I knew my kids were looking forward to celebrating Evan's birthday, to say nothing of poor Evan's disappointment if we didn't have a cake for him, so during all the craziness of preparing Thanksgiving dinner, I also made another cake and did my best to replicate the original with the supplies Diane and her helpful neighbors had on hand. I didn't get a picture of either version of the cake, but I will try to get the video up here sometime soon.

Just a little tea party with friends

An early morning tea party with some friends

The host - in charge of the "snacks"

and hostess - in charge of the "tea"

He made "alphabet soup." This kid is soooooo literal, even in his imagination. He cracks me up!

Riding the range

Just a couple more pictures of our little cowboy.

Once upon a time ...

Elijah and Molly have been starting to make up stories lately. Last night at dinner, we went around the table making up a story together, and they thought it was great. This morning at breakfast, the kids told this story:

Elijah: Once upon a time there were three little bears their names were Thomas James, Molly Beth, and a mama bear named Mama Bear. They went out for a good breakfast and then went for a hike, and they were hunting for ... [dramatic pause]

Molly: Baby Jesus.

Yee-haw!

The kids in their costumes this year:

Molly wanted to be sure and get a picture with her braid. =) She loves Jessie from Toy Story, but she wanted to be a pink cowgirl, so this is what we came up with. She wore her ruffly pink skirt when they wore their costumes to Daddy's office on Friday, but changed into jeans to go out into the neighborhood on Saturday. It was chilly, but the kids were warm enough to be out for a little while with long underwear under their costumes. The kids spent a lot of time yodeling for Mama and Daddy at home, but didn't want to yodel or respond to any of the many "howdy, partner!" greetings they got.

Elijah has owned his cowboy costume since he was just a baby. Nana got it for him and it has been hanging on the wall in his cowboy room, waiting for him to grow into it. It was just right this year - and he looks like a real cowboy in it!