Always Thankful

Kiersten woke me up in the middle of the night On Tuesday before Thanksgiving with a dessert idea. She wanted to make a complicated Pumpkin cream puff dessert. I didn't end up doing the cream puff part, but tried to use the rest of her ideas, and we found a recipe for a pumpkin cheesecake trifle. The girls had fun helping make it on Wednesday.

Kiersten and Evie were my helpers on Thursday while Ben was playing football. I tried to show Kiersten some napkin folding, but we were using the little paper kind of napkins, and she didn't quite get it. So she ended up just rolling them up and putting on the napkin ring.

Evie was quite the little dictator about who would sit where, and kept switching the silverware back to the wrong side of the plate every time I would fix it. I'm not sure if it ended up her way or mine, but no one noticed or said anything either way.

Kara didn't want to help, so she enjoyed her morning watching the parade on tv and playing 3DS.

Our friend Mike joined us for dinner again this year. The girls think he's super cool, and he's great about playing along with them, and letting them jump on him. We actually had turkey this year instead of ham, and I thought it turned out great. Of course I love any meal that Ben makes. He's the better cook between the two of us for sure.

He never makes dessert though. That is my territory. I did kind of miss the pie, but these desserts turned out pretty tasty. None of the girls could finish theirs in one sitting, so they had a couple night's worth of dessert, which was a real treat for them.

Kiersten definitely took credit for "inventing" dessert. (Though I actually just found and used this recipe.) It did have most of her requests, including a caramel sauce, and pumpkin and whipped cream. The only change I made was adding cinnamon to the whipped cream.

Happy Thanksgiving baby!

The Chiefs played on Sunday night this year. We were planning to go early Sunday morning and visit the zoo, but it was so cold. We didn't want to have them outside all day at the zoo, and then make them sit through the game, so we headed up later in the day. We stayed overnight in Kansas City, and were planning to leave bright and early to get the girls to school on Monday. School ended up being canceled, so we were able to sleep in a little, and leave later in the morning.

I made the girls some new hats for the game. They were actually going to be for Christmas, but when Ben saw them, he wanted them to have them for the game. I still might make matching scarves for Christmas though. Kiersten has a snowman.

Kara has an elf hat. I think I might add some pointy ears on there. She might not want me to though, so I'll have to see what she says.

Evie got a Rudolph hat. She was excited when she saw it, but said, "It's actually not Rudolph, but his girlfriend, Trixie." I want to add a button to the ear flaps so it stays on tighter under her chin. I had to use a pattern for Evie's because I couldn't think of a way to make it myself. So that was annoying because I hate sitting there looking back and forth between the instructions and the project. But it was worth the extra time for how much she loved it.  Poor Ben just had to wear the same old hat I made last year.

It wasn't as cold as the last game, but still not pleasant for the kids, especially being a night game with no sun to help. So I took the girls into the science/health zone. They think it's pretty cool, and there are never very many kids in there. I think most people must not know about it. (Or most people aren't bringing little kids to freezing football games.)

This is a strange digestion activity. The kids put the ball into the mouth, and it travels in clear tubes through the esophagus, intestines, and out through the rectum. There are explanations to read all along the journey.

32 NFL team matching game.

They also love playing "Whack a Raider".

Once they got warmed up, they were pretty good for the rest of the game. Evie actually complained the least, and I don't think we had any tears this time, so that was a win, regardless of the team's horrible loss.