So much to be thankful for

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We certainly did!  We've lived up here for 15 months now, & finally had our first visitor: my dad! :)  We all missed him so much & it was so great to spend a few days with him, and also get a chance to meet the new lady in his life, Nancy! :)  Here are a few highlights of our visit.

Natalie was my #1 helper in the kitchen for our Thanksgiving meal.  She's always so willing to help & I've learned with parenting the third time around to let them now or else they'll get bigger & quit asking! lol ;)  So not only did she help me out, but we were extra cute in our matching aprons.  He he! :)  I'm silly, I know.  Can't help it.  In case you're wondering what the heck she's doing with those sweet potatoes... well she really wanted to help me make them, but didn't think they smelled too good before we added the sugar! lol  That girl is too funny.

Yeah yeah, everybody had the same meal last Thursday night.  But I'm especially proud of mine!  I made everything from scratch.  Everything.  The rolls, the pie crusts, the cranberry sauce, everything!  Right down to the loaf of bread I used to make the stuffing.  And not only that, I made it all gluten free!  I was *terrified* that no one was going to like it.  That the gluten-free-ness (yes that is totally a word.  I said so!) would ruin it all if nothing else.  But it was good!  And not only that, my kids actually liked it all!  And the even bigger test: my husband actually got seconds (and thirds... lol) of stuffing & sweet potatoes!  He has *never* liked Thanksgiving food. Yay!! 

But now I'm exhausted.  Still. lol ;)  

Okay, this one was too funny not to share.  Way more funny if you were actually there, but I'll explain anyway.  So my dad used to do this thing when I was a kid with this silly voice.  He'd play three parts with this Vaudville-style dialogue that lasted all of about 10 seconds & was totally dumb.  But it always made me giggle.  He'd have one bow (or pretend to have one) and he'd put it over his mouth like a mustach & say, "You must pay the rent!" Then he'd put it on his head like a hair bow, & in a girls voice would say, "I can't pay the rent!"  The two would go back & forth & then he'd put the bow like a gentleman's bowtie & say in a deep voice, "I'll pay the rent!"  (girl) "My hero!"  (landlord) "Curses!!"  Totally dumb, I know.  But ohmygawd how that would make me laugh as a kid.  Apparently my kids are no exception!  (Why is it so funny?!)  Anyway, three kids, three parts, three bows.  After-dinner entertainment.  Awesomeness. 

So then we spent Friday showing PaPa & Nancy where we live.  A beautiful day for November in Vermont, so we took advantage of the sunshine & went for a walk. 





And now we have a bit of a tradition going where the boys make spedini with PaPa.  They love to cook! 

And again... gluten free bread crumbs were just as good. ;)  So fun.

Best part of visits with PaPa is getting to be just plain silly. ;)

So all in all we had a great visit.  Entirely too short, but great just the same.  We miss him already!  

So my plan is to make another post in the next few days about the house.  SO MUCH has been happening that every time I take pictures & plan to post about it, it's even better by the time I have time to type something!  So I keep putting that off, but I promise I'll update soon & give it it's own post so I can overwhelm you all with even more pictures! ;)  Stay tuned!