Thanks to be given

We hosted our second Thanksgiving this year. We had 11 adults and three children total... all family and some of them were even related to us ;) Jonathan's sister and her family were able to join us and our other "family members" joined us from our church.

This year Jonathan cooked up: A beautiful turkey, cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, tarragon green beans (do I get points for going outside to cut the tarragon in the pouring rain? Hmmm... I suppose Jonathan did do more work) corn, and homemade cranberry and orange sauce. I made: One dairy free (coconut milk) pumpkin pie for Gabriella. Our guest provided the rest of the desserts. Lindsay even brought Jonathan's family's traditional dessert that has been passed down through the generations, "Oreo dessert fluff." OK, maybe not passed down through the generations, but the Whislers certainly like that stuff. Especially Jonathan, who is not much for pie.

Unfortunately, after Jonathan completed so much hard work I failed in my one duty as a wife, which was to take an amazing picture of Jonathan with his beautiful turkey in all of its golden, we-don't-use-turkey-bags-in-this-house, glory. By the time the turkey was done out guests were more than ready to enjoy it and the photo opp was missed.

So, in an attempt to make things right, I ask you to observe Exhibit A:

Do you see it? Way down there in the bottom right corner?

I know, you'll have to stretch your imaginations, but see the beautifully browned skin? The garnish? The moistness practically oozing out? Imagine it whole and magnificent. Tell Jonathan that he made the prettiest turkey that you've ever seen imagined and you will make his day.

I also failed to get many decent pictures of the adults we had the pleasure of sharing a meal with. Mostly, they have unflattering "I'm eating faces" (another testament to Jonathan's good cooking) and I like these people and want to have them over again, so I won't post those on the web. I figure most of you just want to see the kids anyway.

Notice the place where the cranberry sauce used to be on Gabriella's otherwise perfectly intact and untouched plate of delicious food.

Ethan seemed to enjoy his first Thanksgiving. He was really into this tasty orange. Too bad it was plastic.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Duo

I am never quite smart enough to set aside a non-busy time to take Halloween costume pictures. Each year the thought strikes me that I should really plan a little costume mini-shoot on a non-Halloween event day and each year... it doesn't happen. Looking at these pictures you might be thinking... "Good job Natalie, this year your planning paid off." Not so much... this year we seemed to have about a zillion Halloween events and I certainly didn't plan any decent time in for pictures. So, on our hurried walk to playgroup candy-free trick-or-treating I spied a nice spot with good light and abundant leaves, stopped the stroller and spent about 6 minutes taking pictures before rushing the children along so we wouldn't be late. Somehow I managed to get nice pictures of both girls individually and together with (mostly) pleasant facial expressions (OK, so the first isn't really a pleasant expression on G, but it is definitely a Gabriella expression and it makes me smile.)

next year... I really will plan an actual costume session.

Regal

Pounce!

Happy Punkin' Day!

Juliana loves pumpkins. Not even the discovery of the gooey disgusting stuff on the inside of pumpkins that she refused to touch would sway her from that love. We carved our pumpkins on Friday (plenty of time to spare right?) and from the moment Jonathan told her we would be carving pumpkins she walked around saying "Its punkin day!" Then, actual Halloween day was also deemed, "punkin day." Right now, if you ask Juliana what her name is she'll grin and tell you "punkin." If it happens to be Daddy asking she might even say, "I Daddy's punkin." (Finger + wrapped around indeed.)

Anyhow, cute stories aside... I know grandparents are dying for costume pictures. And I have them. Plenty of them. The girls attended four costumed events during the last week. Plus, I never posted pumpkin patch pictures. So while I'm sorting through all that I'll give you a preview of our princess queen (Gabriella promoted herself at some point during the week) and our white tiger.