Thanksgiving 2014

The day before Thanksgiving, the first heavy snow was starting to fall, quickly covering the ground in beautiful powder. I was busy baking pies for the next day and Robbie and Link were making black bean burgers from scratch for dinner when BAHM, the power went out! One of my pies were halfway cooked in the oven. Our water stopped working. Fortunately, we had lanterns, flashlights, and most importantly, our woodstove was roaring.

We decided to try cooking our dinner on the woodstove rather than have it all be wasted. It took a lot longer to cook, but it tasted delicious.

We made the best of our night by singing and playing instruments.

Reading Thanksgiving books by lantern light.

And putting on a shadow puppet show for the boys.

After the boys were sleeping, the power came back on. It startled the cats!

We were able to finish baking my pie and make another before Robbie and I went to sleep too. When we woke up in the morning, our yard was covered in a foot of snow, and our power was out again.

I had to move all of our food out of the refrigerator onto the deck and surround it with snow.

Then we were able to enjoy some play time in the snow while Daddy snow-blowed the driveway. Mostly we watched Daddy. Meo helped shovel!

Right before we left, the power came back! We were so happy! We would come back to a fully functional home and not a cold, dark one. Hooray!

Thanksgiving day was spent at my parents house (Memere and Pepere) along with my brother and his family and my sister. We had a big meal followed by lots of play time with all the little cousins running around.

Link really liked Harley.

Bryce arrived in time for dessert...lots and lots of pie. I made chocolate ribbon and apple pie with oatmeal cookie crust and Sue made pumpkin and pecan pies.

selfies with Meagen

My favorite part of family gatherings now is watching the children play together. It amazes me how much they've grown and it excites me to see them interact and really enjoy each others presence.

Meo and Bryce really enjoyed wrestling this time. Meo has not had many opportunities to wrestle with people his own size so this was especially exciting to him! Bryce loved it too.

Meo also liked pretending he was pregnant by stuffing a baby doll in his shirt then having me assist in it's "delivery".

Happy to be back home with electricity again, we enjoyed some family time ourselves Thanksgiving evening and the next morning.

one practicing standing on two feet and one practicing standing on one foot

 I love it when Meo asks me to come hug or kiss him. I will always stop whatever I am doing for that.

 Friday, we spent celebrating Thanksgiving with Robbie's parents (Grandma and Grandpa).

Jess spent a couple days preparing the most incredible vegetarian feast I've ever had.

homemade crackers and goat cheese

Pumpkin rolls

Squash stuffed with pumpkin risotto

Everyone appreciated Jess's hard work, even my little guys.

For dessert I made pumpkin pie from a pumpkin in our garden, and a fancy apple and cheese port pie with homemade almond crust.

After our feast, we enjoyed each others company. The boys both love spending time with their Aunty Jess.

Watching the birds outside

Link was excited to discover that Maggie is just as playful as her littermate.

That night, we were all happy to have spent so much time with our loving families, and also happy to be back home together with are feline family.

Even the birds had a happy Thanksgiving...I used the last of our pumpkins to make a bird feeder and we delighted in watching the birds eat from it.

At meal time, I started a new routine of each of us saying something we are thankful for. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'd like to share some of the things that three year old Meo has been sayin:

I'm thankful for (Says Meo):

• For going to Carter's birthday party
• For mommy and daddy and salt and pepper
• For going hiking with Mema on her birthday
• For apricots for the animals to eat them
• For all cats everywhere!