a slightly lame thanksgiving, but not too terrible.

our thanksgiving was a little bit non-traditional this year. shane had left on Wednesday to spend the weekend in California with gramma laurie, helping with the community center thanksgiving dinner they have put on for the last 21 years. so he was absent at home. also, dave was sick, and spent most of the day like this:

note the Kleenex box...

but, that didn't stop us from cooking and baking, watching the parade and the dog show, having a yummy meal, playing scattergories, watching football, finishing up with coffee and pie, OR being thankful.

Layla helped with the apple pie. slicing the apples, and crimping the edges of the crust is her favorite part.

finished product. got to try out my fancy snowflake pie crust cutters that I got from a student last year. so pretty! I should really make more pies.

we always look forward to the rockettes during the macy's parade.

it starts with an onion and a whole stick of butter. can't go wrong!

green bean casserole in process. so yummy! and NO cream of mushroom soup. this recipe is so far and away superior!

national dog show. who doesn't love a basset! these dogs just make me smile.

my dad carving.

table is set! still sporting the hand turkey placecards that Layla made years ago. shane's spot is sadly empty.

traditional pic of Layla with the finger olives! I bought the "colossal" olives this year and they were so big, they not only fit on all her fingers, even the thumb, but were TOO BIG on the pinky!

happy husky x2 (actually 3, I just hadn't cleaned out the 3rd dish yet.

micah, demonstrating his appreciation for pie and coffee after thanksgiving dinner.

super-fun (creepy) trick Layla discovered she can do with the tooth that won't come out!

the only real downside came after dinner, when I was standing in the kitchen and heard a horrible shattering noise from inside the dishwasher. I opened it up to discover that the glass lid from one of my casserole dishes had apparently exploded in there! no idea why. it's not like it was wedged anywhere weird, and it's supposed to go in the oven, so it's not like it could have been too hot... at any rate, it was in lots of big pieces and hundreds of tiny shards. so I had to fish all that out of the dishwasher, rinse all the dishes off so we wouldn't wind up eating any glass and internally bleeding to our deaths, clean all the tiny shards out of the bottom of the dishwasher, and re-run the load to try and flush out any remaining. that was a pain. but I only cut myself a tiny bit, and the load seems to have come out glass-free, so hopefully we're good. i'm a little bummed about the lid though. and it's just weird!

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playgroup aftermath

we had playgroup here today. lots of fun, lots of MOMS, lots of kids, lots of mess! micah got up this morning before 6 and powered right on through until everyone left at 3. and then at… we had this: sleepy guy. we had to go pick up shane from the y, so i put him in the car and he napped until we were almost back home. a perfect little nap!

a tribute to layla

i love my daughter. i really do. if i had only 3 words with which to describe her, it would be “full of life”. and she really, really is. she is someone who wants to experience all that life has to offer. i love the age she is too. her excitement about things is always contagious and her ideas hilarious and creative. she’s one of those kids who can’t just paint the paper, and whatever the rules for the game happen to be, they’re too boring and she’s going to play it her own way, darnit! there are a few things that come with this fabulous age, however, that i could easily do without. the screaming fit she had today, for example, over a graham cracker. she had the intention of giving it to micah, and broke it in half, even though, the whole time she was doing it, i was telling her NOT to give one to micah because he was having his lunch. i...

THAT’S NOT FOOD!

my friend, stephanie , has inspired me with her most recent post. apparently this was a topic on oprah today, i don’t watch her show, but it’s a good topic. my comment on her post (which is great – read it. the post, not my comment.), was quickly turning into a post of it’s own, so i decided to continue my vent here. it probably won’t be as eloquent as hers, but i’m climbing up on the soapbox she just got off of. we eat CRAP! LOTS and LOTS of CRAP!!! as a nation, it astounds me how much non-food we consume. i’ve wondered about this for a long time, but it used to be inspired from an environmental standpoint rather than a nutritional standpoint. i wondered about all the garbage we throw out. it bothered me that you couldn’t go to the store and buy granola bars without also buying a box and 6 wrappers, that would then be thrown away. i wondered why, every time you buy salad dressing or ketchup, you have to buy a new bottle, which would then be thrown away. i wondered why, every tim...

i love bees!

so, i took pictures for this post yesterday and then, upon checking some other favorite blogs, i discovered this on angie’s blog. she totally beat me to it! oh well, i guess it’s a common thing right now. but not to be outdone, here is my post: the bees are just crazy right now. especially on the raspberries, which makes me super duper happy because it means we’ll have a TON of wonderful raspberries this year! as you can see, we have a LOT of them… my patch keeps on growing! and the whole thing is literally alive with bees. you can watch it and it’s constantly moving and buzzing… just a whir of activity! it’s really something to see! i just love bumblebees! i always say i want them for pets. maybe it’s because they’re so fuzzy! i could watch them for hours. my rhodies are finally blooming! i love that purple one.

sourdough – installment 2!

well, i guess i did it right! today was day 4 since i made my starter. it had bubbled, grown, shrunk, and bubbled some more and was starting to smell more like wine than yeast. my experienced sourdough-making friend angie assured me that this meant that it had ‘soured’ and i could now use it. so i did. i decided to use my bread machine to do the mixing and kneading for me, but i wanted to bake it in the oven. i used the recipe for sourdough in my bread machine instruction book, and then used the baking instructions in a cookbook i have. at any rate, we have success!!! i was afraid they were a little too done, but actually, the bread and even the crust is still soft, even though it looks kind of dark. we dove right in and holy yumness! i think it could be a little more ‘sour’, so i’m going to leave my replenished starter out a day or two before i ‘put it to sleep’ in the fridge. but as it was, it was wonderful. i tried to take a picture of shane enjoying it, because his piece was big...

rachel's continued ramblings

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