Mini Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday

On Tuesday, Joe and I continued our tradition of "mini Thanksgiving." I cooked a turkey breast and we had stuffing stuffed squash, mashed potatoes and gravy, asparagus, rolls, and wine. I have to brag just a little bit. I make a damn good turkey and my gravy was perfect this year. I really like feeling confidant enough to make an entire Thanksgiving dinner. We used our wedding china and wine glasses for the first time. :)


Me with my turkey!





Thursday, we headed over to my mom's house. We made pumpkin dip for an appetizer. Shortly after we arrived, the turkey popped and my mom got busy finishing everything else. Ethan, Jessica, and James came over and also Jessica's dad. We sat down for a very traditional and delicious dinner. We missed Joe's family this year. They are all in New York. I brought my camera to the table to take pictures of the food, but I was too busy eating to get any!


Waiting for dinner






James enjoying his dinner

On to Black Friday. I have never gone shopping on Black Friday. I decided to look at the ads at my mom's house just for fun. There weren't really any great deals I was interested in until I got to Wal-Mart. They had a great deal on a sewing machine starting at 12:01. I talked Joe into taking me and we got to Wal-Mart around 11:30. Everyone was nice and I found the sewing machine pile and waited until midnight and grabbed one! It was actually kind of fun. Then we stopped at Old Navy because they had jeans for $15. I got a gift card for my birthday and had a birthday coupon so I ended up with: Long jeans, 2 long sleeved shirts for me, one long sleeved shirt for Joe, pajama pants for me, pajama pants for my mom, and a piggy bank...for $1.48. It was awesome!

24 years!

I am 24 years old today, although we celebrated yesterday. There is a big blizzard on the way and the entire state of Utah is in a panic. It's kind of weird. Anyway, because of that, we decided to have my family birthday dinner last night. Everyone met at the Old Spaghetti Factory and had a yummy dinner. Then, we came back to our house for raspberry almond torte and presents! I got some really great things this year, :)

Because of that, today didn't really feel like my birthday, but I did get a wonderful surprise from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. They sent me the most gorgeous bouquet! It was a total surprise!

Now, Joe and I are relaxing, waiting for the storm to hit. I have a mini Thanksgiving dinner cooking and we're going to start a fire soon and have some wine. I loved being 23, but 24 has had a really great start.


Me and my tasty dessert!


Beautiful flowers!

Cooking on Halloween

I had a lot of baking/cooking projects that I had been wanting to try out. Since Halloween was a Sunday, I had lots of time to play in the kitchen!

First, I started making crock pot applesauce. I had read about it online and found a ridiculously easy recipe. I used honeycrisp apples, which are awesome, but pricey. Next time I'll probably use a mix of apples.


Peeling and slicing the apples


The applesauce! My crock pot is tiny so it only made a little. We ate it over slow churned vanilla bean ice cream. So yummy!


Next, it was time to make caramel. I've never made caramel before, but I found a really easy recipe for honey caramel.


Caramel apples!

And finally, I wanted to make another round cake because I had so much fun making Joe's baseball cake. I made this one a pumpkin. We had so much sweet stuff around the house though so Joe took this one to school.

"Halloween"

This year, Halloween was on a Sunday. Being Utah, everyone changed the holiday to Saturday. Joe and I celebrated both days of Halloween, but this post is about Saturday.

We actually woke up early to go car shopping (post coming soon). I wanted to be home by 3 so we would have enough time to carve pumpkins. However, we fell in love with a car and after a long test drive, a check with a mechanic, and all the paper work, we didn't get home until closer to 5 (not that I can complain, I drove home in our new car!).

We got right to carving pumpkins. I usually like to buy normal sized, round pumpkins, but this year, a 38 pound monster pumpkin caught my eye and I couldn't leave it in the Smith's bin, so I bought it. Joe and I carved two pumpkins each.

Just as it was getting time for the trick or treaters to be out, it started raining really hard. I was sad, thinking we wouldn't get as many kids around, but we did! This is such a great neighborhood for trick or treating.

We had our standard Halloween dinner of a pumpkin shaped pizza and lots and lots of candy. After the kids stopped coming by, Joe and I watched Paranormal Activity. Neither of us had seen it before. It wasn't that scary, but it was fun to watch on "Halloween" night!


My big pumpkin!








Joe's awesome pirate ship!






Our costumes. I was a sailor and Joe was a pirate.