BackTracking

Because I hope to someday create a Blurb book out of this blog, I am going to try and go back in time to post some special pictures.

Thanksgiving!! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. This year it fell on Rob's birthday, which means he had the best birthday dinner he's had in a long time :-). He actually spent the morning volunteering at our church as they host a HUGE Thanksgiving Dinner for the community each year. It was a first for us to be involved and it was good to see and learn about the ministry first-hand--even if it was from the distance of the parking lot as he waved people to and from the road to their spots.

Micah and I started out the day making Cranberry Pumpkin muffins for everyone. They were SUPER yummy and I'm sure we'll see them again...

Apparently I was pretty busy that day, as I don't have enough pictures of the day--(especially missing family members--sorry Joel, Grammy, Gramps and Grandpa Rix!) Our house was full of our kids and our parents, and my favorite sister (yes, she is my only sister ;-)). Grammie brought up our favorites from childhood, Grandma made our new favorite dessert, Peppermint Trifle(after spending the WHOLE day in the kitchen making it on Wednesday, boys drooling every time they walked through the kitchen), and I managed to cook my first Turkey in many many years. Thanks to lots of planning ahead and my new favorite cooking teacher, Pioneer Woman, I actually enjoyed the day with little to no stress. That's always a plus!!

School that week had included creating a menu for our dinner, which Gabe took on with gusto. He ever created a logo for our Rixmann Bistro, tho I seem to have failed to get a picture of that (we did save a menu, tho!) Gabe wrote out a beautiful menu, which we made copies of. He then cut them with fancy scissors and added his Logo to the back of each one (imagine an R and a B squished together very artistically. It was quite cool!)

Auntie had taken on Table Decorations as her contribution to the day, and with help from good ole Martha (Stewart.com, that is), she expounded on a very fun idea, which fit in well with the boys latest obsessions (maps!). The boys had fun making some Indian headresses and a Mayflower ship for the centerpiece.

After Dinner we sat down to enjoy a mostly impromptu acting out of the story of Squanto, narrated by yours truly. Daniel wanted to introduce the story, however, and took the "stage" very seriously. "We are going to tell the story of Squanto and the Pilgrims. We're very thankful for the Pilgrims because if it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Trifle!"

We all erupted in peals and howls of laughter, as it was so perfectly and innocently stated.

The only problem was that Daniel was NOT trying to be funny, and was mortified by our laughter. He never really recovered, so poor shirtless Squanto (Gabe) was not able to finish his story. Maybe next year.

We decided to move on to Happy Birthday gifts and the long-awaited Trifle. It was worth the wait. Ooooh, was it ever!!

Tune in later this week for Joel's birthday post!