Our First Thanksgiving

on our own as a family was a little intimidating for me. At least, the prospect of it was. And although we were invited to several different places, Tyler and I decided to do our own thing this year.

Well, mostly I decided. I really was dreading the idea of going somewhere other than our apartment for Thanksgiving 1) because traveling with Richie can be quite the ordeal, and 2) because I really didn't want to worry about pumping and storing breastmilk.

Plus, Tyler was only getting Thanksgiving day off from work, and I really wanted to be able to enjoy the holiday with him.

So after  making that decision, I then had to face the dinner itself. For a few weeks before Thanksgiving, I kept my eyes out for good sales on the traditional Thanksgiving fare, and did some research and thinking about our Thanksgiving meal for two.

Tyler's only request for the meal was that we have his mom's candied yams as part of our feast. No problem. (Even though I'd never made it before.)

The more I thought about our Thanksgiving meal, the more certain I was that making a whole turkey for just the two of us would be a big mistake. There would be way too much meat there for us, and although we could freeze the leftover meat, we still would have faced a mound of food that we'd never get to.

So I opted for Cornish game hens. (Which I've never made before.)

And I also thought it would be good to have homemade stuffing. (Which I'd also never made before.)

I considered making my own pies. (Which I've never done on my own before.)

And I really wanted a green bean casserole. (Again, I've never made that either.)

Are we seeing a pattern here? The more and more I thought about Thanksgiving, the more I realized what a fool I had been my whole life. I don't think I've ever once helped my mom out with our Thanksgiving feast. My responsibility for the meal was always putting together the vegetable snack tray and sometimes the cracker snack tray. Neither of which were any actual work. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Although I'm fairly confident in my cooking abilities, and I'm always game to try a new recipe, pretty much the whole meal was going to consist of new recipes.

So to make things easier on myself, I opted for store bought pies (Thank you to Macey's for having Marie Callender's Razzleberry pie--Tyler's favorite--and chocolate cream pie on sale for less than $4). The whole time I was buying and preparing the food, I kept telling myself that at least the pies would turn out just fine, even if nothing else did.

I contacted my mom for the stuffing recipe. Then I hit up Jill for her candied yams. Then I headed over to allrecipes.com (my go-to recipe site) for the Cornish game hens.

I decided to make mashed potatoes and a green salad, but skip the green bean casserole. (Because, really, we didn't need it. Although, I did wish for it on Thanksgiving day.)

I bought everything we needed on Monday night. Then I did all of the vegetable prep on Wednesday night. (And cooked the candied yams.)

So when Thursday rolled around, all I had to do was throw stuff together and then throw it in the oven (where applicable.)

Check out our results:

And a close-up:

Overall, I'd consider the meal a success.

The Cornish game hens were SO good. (I'll definitely be making them again.)

The candied yams were a delicious and sweet compliment to the meal.

Mashed potatoes were wonderful.

The stuffing was okay. I didn't have any sage. (What spice rack comes without dried sage?!) And I think I made the bread bits too big and the veggies too small. I definitely want to try it again, and see if I can have better success. I ended up using the stuffing like soft croutons atop my green salad.

The pies were great, of course. (Thanks again, Marie Callender.)

Things I missed from this meal, and wished we could have had:

- Green bean casserole (I might make this for kicks sometime this week. I'm seriously craving it.)

- GRAVY (I could have made it, but I just got lazy and didn't.)

- Pumpkin pie (Is it really Thanksgiving without a hint of pumpkin?)

- Rolls (especially homemade ones)

- The veggie platter (Sometimes a girl needs her sweet pickles!)

Truthfully, our meal was pretty simple, and pretty easy to make. The trickiest part was timing everything at the end so all the food would be hot. But I feel like I managed that all nicely.

And truthfully, I had a lot of fun putting it all together. 

(With cute boys like these, who wouldn't enjoy making them a good meal?)

(PS -- Richie hates hats. But this hat and bib combo from Kim and Kris was just too cute not to put on. As soon as Richie saw the hat coming, he started squirming and complaining.)

(The obligatory "I'm here, too" picture.)

Hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving as much as I did mine!

Video Games, Across Country, Family Style

The Heasley boys and girls sometimes enjoy playing a little MarioKart online together.

See?

(Photos taken only minutes apart from each other!)

Brock and Violet seem to be taking the game a little more seriously.

Sometimes, Unexpected Things Happen

I guess I should have learned that lesson by now.

Like when you get the mail, and you get a letter from an address you don't recognize. And when you have recently had a baby, those letters seem to signify yet another bill for something that you assumed your insurance was covering (or were told that it would!) but turns out the insurance would not.

Sidenote: We have been finding out every now and then lately, via phone calls from unknown numbers, that for some reason or another, our bills are not getting to us. For example: on Friday, I got a phone call from the anesthesiologist's office telling me that they had sent me not one but two bills. One in September and one in October. Neither of which I have gotten. So obviously, we haven't paid that bill because we had no idea we owed any money. And not only did we owe them money, but turns out, we owe them A LOT of money. And when the guy who called asked if I wanted to go ahead and pay them over the phone, I about panicked before I realized that it would be wiser to wait till I got the bill in writing to give anyone my credit card information. (I'm still waiting on that bill to show up in my mailbox. I know they have my correct address because I verified it with them. So until I see something in writing, my address is all they are going to get.)

Anyway. So today. We got a letter from an address in Nashville. I assumed it was the bill from Friday, and so I began to hesitatingly open it. (I hate getting bills.)

But then something totally unexpected happen.

It was the opposite of a bill.

It was a check.

Refunding over a thousand dollars to us.

I cannot even tell you how incredible the timing of this letter is.

I fully attribute this blessing to the fact that Tyler and I paid our tithing (on the very small income we have gotten recently) on Sunday. And the fact that Tyler fasted for us to have the money to be able to pay our bills.

We already were feeling so blessed. In fact, our FHE lesson last night was on that very topic--that the Lord would guide us, and that when we looked back on this time in our lives, we would be able to very clearly see the Lord's hand in our lives.

But apparently, we don't even need to "look back" to see the Lord's hand in blessing our lives. The truth is, that since Richie was born, I feel like the Lord's hand has never been more evident. We are absolutely some of the most blessed people I know. (Which sounds braggy, but I do not intend it that way.)

So, at the risk of having a too-long post and becoming too preachy, I just want to add a couple more thoughts before I forget:

*I wonder if the way I feel about how evident the Lord's hand is currently in our lives is in any way similar to how the brother of Jared felt when he literally saw the hand of the Lord. (Okay, finger. Ether 3:4-6)
*And it is definitely better to "look upward" than to look anywhere else. Because when we look to the Lord for guidance, he absolutely gives it to us. (Conference talk by Carl B. Cook)
*1 Nephi 17:3 "And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them; wherefore he did provide means for us while we did sojurn in the wilderness." -- Like I told Tyler last night, I definitely have been feeling sometimes lately that we are "sojurn[ing] in the wilderness."Yet, the Lord is, at every turn, and through various people, taking care of us.

How I ruined Halloween and Other Stories

For Tyler, Halloween is a big deal. He loves it.

So for this Halloween, I had plans to make it awesome. Why not, right?

The plan was to make cute Halloween food (personalized mummy pizzas) with some kind of Halloween side, and have dirt graveyards for dessert. Tyler would dress up as Rick Astley, I would dress up as Paula Deen, and Richie would be Professor Plum, unless we could find a different Halloween costume for cheap.  McKay and McKenna would come over and we'd dish out Halloween candy to tons of cute trick-or-treaters when they approached our awesomely decorated Halloween door.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened.

Halloween morning, I woke up sick. I was exhausted, my throat was sore, and I was feeling sick to my stomach. Along with (and I apologize if this is TMI) some clogged milk ducts, and I was down and out for the day. I tried to get some extra rest and psych myself up for the night, but I never did get my energy level very high.

So, Paula Deen never happened. Homemade pizza was out, Papa Murphy's jack-o-lantern pizza was in. Creepy salad turned to regular salad. Personalized dirt grave plots became a dirt boneyard. (Oreos, chocolate pudding, and candy bones.)

I couldn't find a cute and affordable costume for Richie, and didn't get a chance to make accessories for his Professor Plum onesie. (But then, I didn't end up dressing him up anyway.)

McKay, McKenna, and Grant still came over (thank goodness) but somehow the trick-or-treaters missed the memo that we had candy. I envisioned at least 20 kids coming by the apartment, if not more. We had 8 trick-or-treaters.

Rest assured, our night was still fun, but it wasn't at all how we envisioned that it would be.

I didn't even get pictures of our pumpkins all lit up.

I guess we'll have to try again next year. (There's no where to go but up?)

And like I said, thank goodness for McKay, McKenna, and Grant. We always have fun when we are with them. (We sure are going to miss them when we move to Logan. That update will happen next.)

I hope you all had awesome Halloweens this year. And here's to a great Thanksgiving!