Cuties

My two kiddos, all dressed up:

A damsel and her knight.

Special thanks to Grandmama and Grandpapa, who brought them their costumes from England!

And here's the pumpkin that Nathan "and Noah" carved:

A Spirited Thanksgiving

Why am I thinking Thanksgiving when it's not even November yet? You may well ask. It's because most of Nathan's family (sans Matthew and Emily, who can't come from England--boo) is meeting at our new house to celebrate and early Thanksgiving this coming weekend.

This is one of the reasons we've been doing renovations in our house like crazy people. That, and the fact that if we don't go ahead and do them, chances are we'll just get used to seeing things the way they are and say to ourselves, "Oh, carpet in the bathrooms? [sigh] Who cares?" This, of course, is unacceptable. So in addition to the benefit of seeing family, hosting Thanksgiving this year has the bonus of giving us a reason to get stuff done.

Anyway, if you've read this blog over the years, you know that I love everything about Thanksgiving: the meal, scouting out new recipes, the tradition of the holiday, the turn in cooking towards fall ingredients, and (of course) having a big gathering of friends and/or family to whom I can serve up a big, heaping plate of warm-hearted wonderfulness.

This year, when I asked if anyone had any special requests to add to the menu, my sister-in-law asked for her family's Bourbon Sweet Potatoes, and my mother-in-law mentioned a Bourbon Apple Pie. And as I was flipping through my Cooking Light magazine, I just ran across Bourbon Cider Gravy and a Maple-Bourbon Pecan Pie, both of which I am considering making. The magazine even suggested a splash of port in the cranberry sauce (genius? perhaps!). Hmm. I'm seeing a trend here.

In the happy event that you are interested in having a spirited Thanksgiving, too, I'm posting Meghan's recipe for Bourbon Sweet Potatoes. Enjoy!

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Bourbon Sweet Potatoes

3 cups peeled sweet potatoes (about 6 whole), cubed
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup cream or whole milk
1 tsp. vanilla
bourbon to taste (I'd start with 2 tablespoons and go from there)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Boil the sweet potatoes until fork-tender and soft enough to mash. Mash them with the butter, then mix in the rest of the ingredients. Add the sweet potato mixture to a buttered baking dish and bake for 15-20 minutes, until warm.

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And in case you're thinking about Thanksgiving already, too, I'm reposting a few links to recipes and tips that I've written about in Thanksgivings past. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Turkey Tutorial
Cranberry Sauce
Green Bean Casserole
Corn Casserole
Hershey Bar Pie
Pecan Pie

Among other things, I'll also be making:
Apples and Pumpkin Dip
Sweet Potato Biscuits

No, I Have Not Dropped Off the Face of the Planet

At the risk of sounding very repetitive: I've just been busy! And the pitiful number of posts over the last couple of months can attest to it. In fact, today and yesterday I've been kind of sick; I think I am just run down.

I wish I had something interesting to write, because lots of interesting things have been happening. But my mind can't form complete thoughts very well these days--at least not complete enough to make up a blog post. I'm running in too many directions with too many things that need immediate attention. But as a Costa Rican lady I know says, "Poco a poco." "Little by little." Little by little, we'll get our house done. Little by little, Noah will get better at counting. Little by little, I'll be able to get the kids and myself involved in some more activities.

We went to Boston for several days last week, and it was lovely. I'll post more on that later, but here is a picture to whet your appetite. :)

Thoughts at Noon this Tuesday

• I'm looking at the Janie and Jack website, and oh my gosh, I'm having issues. Everything is so amazingly cute and so amazingly expensive.
• The carpenters are here, building a pantry and two bookshelves. I will be glad when it's done; for one thing, it's stressful to hear people beating on your house and cracking open your cabinets. But also, I suffer from a flush of uncertainty every time I have to make a decision--will the bookshelves be too shallow? Are they too narrow? Keep the outlet or get rid of it? Three drawers or four? Can they really finish all of this in one day? What color do we stain it? Hopefully I'll just think it's all pretty when they leave tonight.
• Plus, I can't go run some of my farther-flung errands until they are done--they ask me the occasional question about how I want something done, and I just can't be gone for long.
  
• It's exciting to get to build what you want, though. Custom pull-out drawers in the pantry! Awesome! (I am aware of the redundancy of calling any kind of drawer a "pull-out drawer." If it didn't pull out, it wouldn't be a drawer. Why does my carpenter call them that?)
• More later. Gotta go get on top of some of these errands....
  

Busy, Lately?

Why, yes, I have been busy!

Here are a few notes from the last little while:

• We hear this a lot at our house, since it's so cute: "Jane, what's your name?" "Baby!"
• Our kitchen is going to be more workable than I initially thought. Basically, at some point, they sacrificed a lot of the upper cabinets to opening it up to the family room. So as it turns out, there is enough room for all our kitchen items, but not all our things will be in convenient places (dish towels in a lower cabinet, for example). And all of the serving dishes and teacups that were previously in the dining room don't currently have a home; I think we will have to buy a china cabinet. Craig's List, here we come!
  
• Things Nathan has accomplished today: new oven delivered and installed, old oven hauled away; painted some; replaced some outlets; picked up a work bench for the garage; reversed a cabinet door (not an easy task).
• Next week's schedule: Monday and Tuesday = carpenter will be building a pantry and two bookcases. Wednesday and Thursday = new flooring will be installed. My question: What in the world am I going to do with my two little ones to keep them out of the way for four entire days?
• I have been so happy about how well Noah and Jane play in the backyard. Y'all, it is amazing! There is a large window through which I can watch them from the inside, so it's much easier to let them spend lots of time out there, since I don't have to be out there every moment to supervise. And they will play contentedly in the dirt (or--delight of delights--with the hose!) for an hour at a time. For a mother of such active children, this is a serious boon. Once I make it clear to Jane that she is not to pull all the blooms off the mums or yank the entire rosemary plant out of the planter, we'll be in good shape.
  
• When we first started coming over to our new house, we'd take Noah upstairs and say, "Which room will be your room, Noah?" And he'd reply, with no reference to his choice of room, "I want Janey to sleep in my room." After he said this about four times, we decided, "Hey, why not?" So they now share a room. It is so awesome! It's working out really well; they both love not being alone, I think. And Noah is proving to be a great big brother. Tonight he told us that he laid down in Jane's bed to help her go to sleep (she was fussing a good bit). And most mornings we hear sweet things over the monitor. They wake up talking with each other. One day, Nathan even walked in to see Jane in Noah's bed. We are so pleased with how the arrangement is working out.
  

Well, I'm tired, and that's all I can think of to say right now. Off to have some tea.