Happy Turkey Day

Here is the 10.5 lb bird I brined and cook for my family of 4 on Thanksgiving day. I used a new recipe (by Alton Brown) and followed that thing to a T...it came out very juicy but I think I should have left the foil off that was over the breast, that part wasn't a pretty roasted brown color. Oh well, it was yummy and different from my usual Reynolds Turkey bag that we use every year.

We had lots of left overs and I boiled up the bones to make Jook, a hawaiian/chinese favorite that is basically turkey soup with rice and seasonings. The kids loved that more than the actual turkey. All the hardwork in preparing a nice meal for the family and both kids weren't impressed with turkey for lunch or dinner.

On Thanksgiving morning I had planned to start our annual tradition of setting up our christmas tree & decorations with the kids. So one of the big ideas we had was to have each kid have alittle themed ornament for themselves. Little Man got Legos and Little Miss had some Hello Kitty ornaments that were on super clearance last year. We took the legos we already had and created little ornaments by tying ribbon on them! (I saw it in a magazine) You can't beat FREE ornaments right? plus the kids enjoyed making them.

Hanging the ornaments on the tree is another story. As you can imagine both kids put all the ornaments in one spot on the tree, which drives mommy nuts, so after a little convincing they spread them out and made it pretty for mommy. I know I shouldn't do that but they enjoyed moving it around and picking new spots for their ornaments.
The big tree is actually mommys tree and the kids have their own small tree that they can decorate however they please. This year instead of picking a specific theme for our big tree I decided to let the kids help and have their toys/favorite things on their. So tah-dah....legos & hello kitty along with some other favorites that haven't been put up yet.


And this is what the tree looks like! If time & patience is on my side we may make a garland of some sort to put around the tree this year. We'll get crafty and use pretty paper limks or maybe some foam beads that the kids love to craft with.

Tomorrow is December 1st....It's begining to look alot like Christmas!