Giving thanks!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

We had a nice, low key Thanksgiving. This year, we opted to stay home, and
watch lots of movies, and eat lots of food!!
This was my first attempt, at making the turkey. AHH! The past two years,
we had Thanksgiving with friends, and I always got out of making the turkey.
Other than that, my mom has always made it.
I did call my mom, for pointers - and then just went with some stuff I've seen
other people do.
I bought a 12lb turkey, on Monday, and let it thaw in the fridge. It seemed to
be thawing nicely, but when we pulled it out this morning, to get the gizzards
out, the gizzards were frozen. Eee...
So I put it in a bag, sealed it, and stuck it in the sink with water. That seemed
to help a lot - but we did have a little bit of pink, towards the middle. So we
just ate around it. It turned out good! The skin looked great, and the meat was
tasty! I was relieved to find out, my mom had the same problem. She's been
cooking turkeys for 30+ Thanksgivings, so I'm glad it's just not beginners luck :}

Everything else turned out great! We had the usual; mashed potatoes, gravy,
green bean casserole, candied yams, rolls, stuffing, and deviled eggs.
I also got to whip out LOTS of Pyrex! Which was my favorite part... ;)

Throughout the day, I noticed deviled eggs were missing from the fridge! Then,
I caught Daniel sneaking them! That was followed by Dmitri stealing them,
before we officially started eating. Dmitri probably ate 4 at dinner, and then
4 more before the night was over... O.o

He is such a weird kid. He loves deviled eggs, egg salad, potato salad, tuna fish,
hummus, and some other odd foods, that most kids wont eat. He'll also eat
anything, that comes with dipping sauce. Which is how I get him to eat more
carrots... a side of ranch.

Anyways, it was a nice dinner. We also had a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.
I failed on the pumpkin pie. While I was shopping for the ingredients, I grabbed
a can of pumpkin puree, and what I thought was evaporated milk. I didn't even
look at the label, just assumed, because they were together on display. Turns out
I bought condensed milk. I had everything on hand, for the cheesecake, so I just
did that.

I was asking Dmitri, what he was thankful for. He told me; Jesus, mommy and
daddy. Then I tried to get it on camera, and he had even more to be thankful for!
{all the boys and girls, are his cousins. He got to Facetime some of them today}

A friend of mine, came up to me a couple Sunday's ago. She is the Primary chorister,
and also does it for Nursery. So she was in Nursery, singing songs with them, and
asking what they were thankful for. She said she called on Dmitri, and he thought
for a second - then said, "My mommy and daddy." When she told me that, I had to
hold back the tears! It just warmed my heart! I love that boy!!

Thanksgiving morning, {sorry for the backtracking} Daniel played at the Turkey
Bowl for our ward. Dmitri and I slept in, then Dmitri joined me in bed, and we
watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade and Aladdin.

He was excited, when the Smurf float came on :}

We definitely have a lot to be thankful for. Our family, our health, our baby on the
way! I'm also thankful, for a roof over our heads, food to eat, and a husband that
works hard - to allow us to have those things.
We've also been reflecting, on the blessing it's been, to live in beautiful Hawaii. We
found out a couple weeks back, that our time here has come to an end. Daniel was
supposed to deploy to Iraq, in January, but it was canceled. I had planned on heading
to Utah, when he deployed, so I was gearing myself up to leave here. But that was
back in May, June. But when we got the word, that we were going back to our original
PCS date, we also found out we'd be leaving December 31st! Ahh! I thought I was
ready to leave... but that was when I had 6 months to prepare! Not a month! Needless
to say, we've been a little stressed. Especially since our rushed paperwork, is not rushing.
I never thought getting a few signatures, would be so difficult. Blah!

So our next stop, is taking us to Georgia! We had a few options, but this one stood out,
amongst the others. Especially since we already have some really good friends there!!
So that's a blessing already! Another blessing, we get to spend Christmas in Utah, with
our family! At the beginning of the holiday season, I just kept thinking how nice it's be,
to go home for Christmas. I didn't think it'd actually come true though! So we are SO
excited! I think Dmitri is the most excited. Everyday he asks if it's time to go :)

That pretty much wraps up our week! I hope all our friends had a wonderful
Thanksgiving, and survived black Friday shopping!! ;)

Some puddle jumping! We had to make a late night run - for cream cheese...

More floats!

And lastly... Dmitri's self portrait! I love it!!

Here's a video from gymnastics. They were playing with the parachute again.
Dmitri got to be the first one to spin... he wasn't too sure about it! :}
This is another thing I'm going to miss... Dmitri loves going to nastics!
He loves his coaches, especially Coach Clifferder {Christopher}
and they call him Chicken Hawk, which he thinks is so funny!

Oh! So two or so blog posts ago - I mentioned how Dmitri tries
to do a flip on the rings, but had yet to succeed. Seriously, the day
after that post, he did it!!! I was SO proud of him!! :D Go Dima go!

He has NEVER done this! At least not in a cart, at the store. It
was too funny! He did end up falling asleep :}