Thanksgiving Goodies!

Jake with his sweet potato pie in the right and pumpkin in the left.

Bert showing off his coconut pie skills.

Sweet potato

Scratch Pumpkin

Impossible Coconut Pie

Cherry Cheesecake

We made 15 pies/cakes today for our Thanksgiving feast tomorrow! 4 coconut pies (one was for a friendly neighbor), 5 pumpkin (2 from scratch, 3 from the canned pumpkin), 3 sweet potato from scratch, 1 lemon cheesecake, and 2 cherry cheesecakes (one of which was for Carl's work feast today)! Whew! Took about 8 hours in total!!

Carl was in charge of the cheesecakes and did a fabulous job as always! I have always been a sucker for my hunky husband and his cheesecake skills! He even made his own graham cracker crumbs in the food processor :) Alex helped me out with the coconut pies, adding all the ingredients to the blender and sprinkling the coconut on the tops. Jake was a super helper, working with me for over half the time on both the pumpkin and sweet potato pies! For the most part, I was HIS assistant! :) He peeled the sweet potatoes, measured out all the ingredients and he even took some of the pies from the oven on his own. And, special props go out to Lauren and her friend Sidney for making all the crusts for me! Thanks so much gals, I really appreciate it and they were Fabulous looking!

Now, I think I am going to go take a rest!

Ancestry

I have been having a lot of fun lately trying to piece together Carl's family history. There have been quite a few suprises, some unknown relatives unearthed and names discovered. I now have him back as far as his great grandparents and as far wide as some 3rd cousins, and that is just awesome. This is where it gets tricky though, as the two main branches of his family tree come from Ireland (notoriously hard to trace) and American Indian (lots of looooooong names there brother!) But, I think that is what is going to make it the most fun! I have had the wonderful help of my ever patient Mother-in-Law Jackie and her box 'o memories that has helped tremendously! Now I think I am just going to have to roll up my sleeves and get down and dirty at the Family History Library.:)

Sick Day

I am sick and not appreciating it! I told Carl that I would get back into the blogging world so that our family and friends could be informed as to what we are doing. (I certainly fell off the wagon for a while) but I am back on and sadly, on this first day all I am thinking about is being ill. Ha

But, being sick has given me the opportunity to do some things I have been wanting to do and haven't in a while, so I thought I would give you a list...

1. Lay in bed for hours during the middle of the day
2. Watch Robin Hood: Men in Tights whilst lying in the bed
3. Using all the super hot water in the water heater so I could spend 20 min in the shower
4. Sit in front of the computer and do silly things with no/little guilt
5. Wash some laundry (but only a bit..seriously, we were running out of socks...)
6. Sit in lounge pants and comfortable shirts all the live long day
7. Make myself a large cup of hot cocoa

So, here is to looking on the bright side of sickness and hoping that, while I can see the positives, this goes away soon!!