Thanksgiving Food Prep

Did you know that it takes 15-20 minutes to cook a pound of turkey? I just found that out. So, our turkey, Pepe, being 20 pounds should take 6 hours and 40 minutes to cook. Mom will start the process at 7 tomorrow morning. Right now Pepe is being brined. In a 4 gallon bucket. Uncle Mark gave Mom this recipe for Apple Cider Brine. We tried it last year. It makes the turkey really tender and delicious.

I made almost 3 dozen rolls this morning. We use our normal bread recipe for that. And I started on Cranberry Jello Salad, which is from Mema's recipe.

Thanksgiving Plans

Amy is coming home for Thanksgiving! She is having one of her five roommates come. Her name is Margaret. She lives far away and isn't able to go home for Thanksgiving. Mom will pick them up on Tuesday. We are excited about having Amy back!
This past Saturday, the 22nd, was Amy's 19th birthday. We sent her a card, and were just planning on celebrating with her when she comes home. But for a suprise, some of her roommates and friends brought her to Dallas! It was quite a suprise when the doorbell and voices woke me up. We were happy to have Amy back! All of us had a big yummy breakfast of burritos that Dad made, and we visited friends, and shopped at Ikea. We had a lot of fun together.

This is Pepe, our young Spanish turkey. Presently he is thawing in the fridge. Last year's turkey was Tommy.

On Friday was ECC registration. So we registered for classes for next semester. Friday evening Clara went to a friends birthday sleepover, and Dad went to a men's night with people from church. Mom, Melissa, Cally (Melissa's friend), and I went to see the play Beauty and the Beast that a local highschool was showing. We really enjoyed the play.

Gospel for Asia's Christmas Catalog

Something out of Leftovers

Last night was ECC's End of Semester program. Our family needed to bring finger sandwiches, to help provide for the refreshments after the program. We made up a whole loaf of peanut butter & apricot jelly sandwiches, which we cut into little triangles. This is all well and good, but the only thing is, that because we took so many, we had a bunch left over. I thought we would have some for lunch for a while. But this morning, Mom proposed that we make french toast out of them. We all thought it would be disgusting; after all, egg, vanilla, and cinnamon do not sound absolutely delicious with peanut butter and jelly. But Dad tried making one triangle sandwich into french toast, and to our, at least to my, suprise, it was delicious! It's like bite sized french toast with the syrup inside already.

So, that was our breakfast this morning.

Dream Come True :: Seven Children

So for this extended weekend (from Thursday to Monday), we have had our friends, the Powells, stay with us. Their parents have been in Florida because the family's step grandmother died.

So Mom has seven sort-of kids.

This is Justin. He is Clara's age.

We have been having a lot of fun with them. It's like having brothers and more sisters.

We were at the park on Thursday. Here Brandon and Sarah are catching minnows in the creek.

This is Sharlena. She's my (Ellie's) age.

Brandon is in 2nd grade, Sarah in 4th grade, and Justin in 7th. Sharlena is a freshman.

Brandon, Sarah, and Mom had fun making cookies.

Sharlena called this one "Ellie with an attitude"

On October 31st, we went to our church's Fall Family Festival. I wore one of Mema's square dance dresses and a petticoat, and Clara wore a hat and a stripey shirt. Brandon was a hippy. Sarah was a princess, and Justin and Sharlena didn't dress up.

We took pumpkins home that were part of the decorations, planning on carving them.

It was nice to have Dad help us. He knows what he's doing.

Melissa did the Dallas skyline. I never would have thought of something like that.

Justin doesn't have invisibility skills, as you might assume at first glance. We used the long-time exposure setting on a camera.