Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a nice, low key Thanksgiving. I decided that I wanted to host my own dinner since it has been several years since I have cooked a turkey and done the whole thing myself. David's family wasn't doing a big thing this year so we invited his parents over for lunch and they did their own thing for dinner. It worked out really well. 

It's always amazing to me how much time and effort goes into preparing the Thanksgiving meal and then it only takes 30 minutes to eat. I spread out a lot of my prep in the days before Thursday--I made homemade cinnamon ice cream, caramel, and the cranberry sauce. 

David decided he was going to use one of our leftover Halloween pumpkins (which wasn't carved) to make pumpkin pie. Now, if you know David, you know he doesn't cook. But he did the research, found some recipes, and spent most of Wednesday roasting, pureeing, and making the pumpkin pie filling. I think it turned out pretty great (even though I'm not a huge pumpkin pie fan). 

I put the turkey in the oven early in the morning on Thursday (after dry brining it the day before) and went for a run. When I got back, I finished off the stuffing, mashed potatoes, apple pie, roasted carrots, and gravy. David insisted the turkey would take forever, but it was done pretty quickly. In fact, it probably cooked too long and it was a little dry but I actually don't mind that because you just drench your turkey with gravy anyway. 

Luckily, David's parents arrived early and we got down to eating as soon as all the food was ready. My mother-in-law brought rolls and sweet potatoes. It was a delicious meal. 

And here's sweet Benjamin cuddling with his grandpa. That boy is just too cute and sweet for words. He really loved the sweet potatoes and turkey. I think Adelaide maybe ate a roll and Zara ate most of her food. I've been enjoying all the leftovers, but the kids are pretty sick of turkey. Bhaer still thinks it's great and keeps trying to hop into the refrigerator to eat the leftovers. 

My First 5k

I have always been decidedly anti-running. I have mercilessly and gleefully mocked those strange creatures who seem to enjoy running for the mere sake of running. But after Benjamin was born I decided to prioritize getting back in shape (relatively speaking) and took up running as the cheapest option. I try to do workout videos at home but I often find it difficult to commit the time because I get easily distracted by other things around the house and if I even so much as attempt to do a sit-up, I have at least two children trying to crawl on top of me. So running was the next best option. After my parents bought me a jogging stroller, I found a few great trails nearby that I could run on and have been running (or to be more accurate, walking) at least two or three times a week since March. The kids enjoy riding in the stroller (and I fill them up on a lot of snacks) and I've been listening to a ton of podcasts. (Pop Culture Happy Hour is my favorite, if you were wondering.) 

So a few weeks back, a woman in my ward posted about an early bird turkey trot with options to do a 5k, 10k, 15k, or half marathon and wondered if anyone wanted to join her. And forgetting decades of mockery, I decided to sign up. 

Angie, Alisa, me, Kim, Zoie, Michelle, Angela, Jill

There ended up being eight of us on race day. Here we are before the race. Four of us did the 5k--including one girl who is 32 weeks pregnant--and four did the 10k. And since I'd never done a race before, I got my best time! But really, I did finish faster than I have in my other previous practice runs. After the advice of a friend who does marathons, I decided to run intervals--run three minutes, walk one minute--and my time drastically improved. I finished in just under 31 minutes, running an average of 10:15/mile. Before, I'd been doing about an 11 minute mile.  

Here we are at the finish line. You can see that my hair is pretty crazy now. Afterwards we went out to brunch at a local cafe. The service was a bit spotty but the food was delicious. I got the eggs benedict because that's become my litmus test for whether or not a restaurant has a good brunch. And they brought us some of their homemade donuts which were delicious. So all in all, I enjoyed my very first 5k and I may just be persuaded to do it again. 

One of Those Days

It was one of those days, you know? It's Wednesday which means Adelaide normally has preschool. After getting David and Zara off to work and school respectively, I quickly got Benjamin, Adelaide, and myself dressed and ready while trying to make a shopping list and process a return to an online store. I finally get us loaded up in the car (late, naturally) and then hit lots of construction and traffic on the way. We rotate where preschool is held among the five girls and today's host is normally a 15 minute drive away, but today it took half an hour. I was already disgruntled when I arrived only to be informed that preschool had been cancelled and I must have missed the text. 

I needed to be out that way to run errands so no big deal, but now it meant that I would have to take Adelaide with me to Zara's Thanksgiving luncheon and we were crunched for time. So I quickly stopped at the FedEx store to drop off my package, booked it to Sprouts where I blitzed through grabbing things as quickly as I could, and then raced back to the car and home where I threw the necessary items in the refrigerator and made it to Zara's school just in time. 

We ate a Thanksgiving meal with Zara. Of course Zara refused to eat the turkey and stuffing and got a different meal; Adelaide only halfheartedly ate her food, and Benjamin wanted to feed himself the sweet potato souffle which of course ended up all over himself and me.

We got back from Zara's lunch and let Benjamin and Adelaide play outside for a little bit. Benjamin just wanted to play in the dirt and Adelaide just wanted to play with the cat. So I grabbed my camera and had a little impromptu photo shoot. I managed to get a few good shots even though Benjamin was studiously trying to avoid looking at me.

I'm particularly proud of this snot bubble right here. Benjamin has been dripping so much the last few days.

And now maybe the day can stop being so crazy. Right? Right?

Snug as a Bug in a Rug

Sometimes you just have to tuck your kitty up for a nice long nap as you work beside him on the couch. This cat...

More Family Photos

As you may have noticed, we've got a new look for the blog. We got our edited family photos back yesterday and I'm so happy to have photos of our whole family. Here's a few more of my favorites.

Gone With the Wind Museum and Marietta Square

We've lived in Marietta for almost three years now and literally just down the street (OK, the 120 Loop) is the historic Marietta Square with its random museums and historic district. I've been to the square and several of the museums before, but when my old college friend and fellow American history nerd Christa came to visit it seemed like a good opportunity to check it out again. We went to the Gone With the Wind Museum but calling it a museum is a generous moniker. It's a personal collection of Gone With the Wind memorabilia from both the book and movie productions--hundreds of editions of the book from a variety of countries, typewritten correspondence from Margaret Mitchell, telegrams from the producers of the movie about casting choices, photographs, costumes, and more. It was a weird and varied display but still fascinating in its own respect. And now I have this huge desire to re-read the book and watch the movie. 

After the museum, we walked through the square. I swear I've walked through it before but I must have forgotten or never noticed that they have a small replica train of the General, from the great locomotive chase of the Civil War, that kids can climb on and play with. It even has a slide out the back. 

The kids had a lot of fun and enjoyed having Christa come visit. Zara was especially sad to see her go because she helped her with her homework and played Uno with her. They're pretty much BFFs now.