Week 38

Nov 25-Dec 1

Happy Thanksgiving!! Of course this was Jack's 1st Thanksgiving and it was pretty cool because he is actually old enough to eat some "real" food. :) As usual with my job I had to work on Thanksgiving. Since I have been a nurse I've felt pretty bad because Ed LOVES holidays and he always gets so excited to cook Thanksgiving dinner. Over the years he has started to perfect his Thanksgiving dinner menu and it seems like I am never here to help him cook. Not that he needs my help.As usual he made a DELICIOUS meal. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and crescent rolls. Mmmm. It is soooo yummy.

I did actually contribute to one part of the Thanksgiving dinner. Ed tasked me with the job of making the pumpkin logs. It is his mom's recipe and it is ridiculously good. I attempted to make them, but for some reason my oven did not want to cooperate. Pumpkin logs are basically a spongy, pumpkin cake that you bake on a cookie sheet. You get it out of the oven, roll it up into a towel sprinkled with powdered sugar, then after it cools you frost it with cream cheese frosting made from scratch.

After that you roll it up similar to a "jelly roll" and then place it in the fridge. To serve them you cut them and they are little round pin-wheel desserts. The combination of cream cheese with pumpkin is very complimentary. To make a long story short my oven didn't quite cooperate so the pumpkin part was a little too "spongy" and they tasted good, but didn't hold their shape quite as well as I would have liked. I guess I need a little more practice.

So Ed cooked the dinner and I had to work at the hospital. We had quite a few patients and they were pretty sick so I honestly didn't mind working. I got home around 8:00 pm and we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. Jack feasted on mashed potatoes with gravy as well as sweet potato casserole with marshmallows. He loved it and ate every bite that I gave him. Ed had put up the Christmas tree but waited for me to decorate it.

One of our traditions we started is putting up Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving day. Decorating the tree is always saved for last and it is a very special celebration that we look forward to every year. We get out our boxes of ornaments and place them on the tree one at a time. Our favorites of course are those unique ornaments that bring back memories. We tell stories about them and reminisce as we put them on the tree. We really get into the mood because we have all the lights off except the ones on the tree and we play Christmas music. It's a nice tradition that we can't wait to share with Jack one day. :)

One last fun thing that happened this week. Ed decided to give me my birthday present a couple of weeks early. He has been so excited about this gift and I have been anxious to find out what it was. He finally said he couldn't stand it anymore so he let me open them. I knew it must be something good because he is usually the one to make me wait to open my presents until my actual birthday.

Well I opened them up and I got a new Nikon D5000!!! Basically it's an amazing camera that I thought I would never get in my whole life. I have always wanted to do photography and now I feel like I can really pursue it. We went out last Saturday afternoon and tested out my new gift. It is pretty amazing! Here are some of the shots I took. I can't wait to experiment more with this. It also takes HD movies, which I can't wait to check out. I really want to make movies with the iMac using my HD clips I take on my camera! :) There are so many possibilities with this gift.

As usual Ed has outgifted me. I didn't think he would be able to top the Surprise 30th Birthday Party with all of his friends and family. I guess I have to work on outgifting him at Christmas. I think I have it in the bag already. I have his gifts hidden away and I can't wait for him to see them Christmas morning!! :)