The Day Before Thanksgiving

It's the day before Thanksgiving
And all through the house
My kids are fighting and refusing to do their chores and begging me for candy. And then they get bored and do stuff like this:

I thought about actually rhyming there, but ain't nobody got time for that!

Luckily Grandma came and took Daisy for a while, and Zoe has a friend over to play. That helps a lot with the fighting.

Today I have a pretty big to do list. My Thanksgiving assignments are rolls and Jell-O. I've successfully made rolls for Thanksgiving many-a-time, but when I went back to school in 2014, I stopped making yeasty things and haven't ever really started back up again. I was a little nervous that being out of practice would be an issue with the Thanksgiving rolls, and sure enough... it was!

Home-made rolls were a bust.

My plan was to make three batches over the course of two days  and freeze them until Thanksgiving morning (giving me six dozen). The first mistake I made was not buying enough yeast. My personal rule for the week of Thanksgiving is to shop like the apocalypse is coming and not leave my house from Tuesday to Sunday. My apocalyptic preparation was not sufficient, and after I screwed up my first batch of rolls (an hour and a half into the process), I gave myself a free pass to buy the damn rolls.

Jell-O shouldn't be difficult, but based on my own capacity to ruin food, you just never know. I'm making my step-mom's Thanksgiving Jell-O for the first time, and there are layers and fruits involved. The first layer is setting as we speak. Fingers crossed for Jell-O success! I set aside a mini version for quality control.The good thing is, I'm not taking my step-mom's Jell-O to her house, so if it's "wrong," at least I won't be feeding it to people who know it's wrong! Worst case scenario - I make back-up, fruitless, layerless Jell-O in the morning.

I'm also trying my hand at a bone-in, slow-cooked turkey breast today. I've been quite spoiled in the turkey industry, and I've never had to make a turkey. I did try roasting one once just for fun, and it wasn't great. I don't think it was the roasting that went wrong. I think I just picked a really cheap, low-quality turkey. This time I bought a higher quality turkey, so we'll see what happens. I feel like this is my turkey debut, even though I won't actually be serving this turkey to anyone other than my own household.

I've had to restrain myself from decorating for Christmas. I've got the bug, but I want to wait until after Thanksgiving. Last year we didn't have a real Christmas tree because we were putting in new flooring during December. Having a paper tree was actually really awesome (easiest clean up ever!) but I'm excited to have a real (and by real, I mean fake, pre-lit) tree this year.

I did let my kids put their trees up in their rooms, though. It was a great incentive to get them to clean the house on Monday night (which has since been destroyed and cleaned and destroyed over and over again. Current status: destroyed).

Nicky gave me a list of about ten different themed ideas he had to decorate his tree and wanted me to pick. I chose "Nintendo history" having no idea what he was going to produce.

Here's his creation:

I realize that someday I'm going to have to let this child do a tree for Festival of Trees - speaking of which, he talks about the Festival of Trees constantly. Last year I surprised him by checking him out of school and taking him to the Festival. I'm going to do it again this year. Shhhh! Don't tell! Now the question is... do I take Daisy, too? I'll have to think about that.

We've been trying to do more activities with our kids one at a time. The first time we took Zoe, we went to a Mexican restaurant because she loves tacos. When we pulled in the parking lot, she said, "I don't like being alone with you guys." It was pretty funny. She fights with her siblings constantly but was sad at the thought of eating tacos without them. By the time she had her food, though, she had changed her mind and quite enjoyed being the center of attention. 

Nicky is at an age where he wants to do things that Scotty and I actually don't mind doing, so he tends to get a little more "out" time. In fact, just yesterday, he and I went to see the Crimes of Grindelwald together. I had enough rewards points to get free popcorn and drink, and then we also got nachos, which are a special deal on Tuesdays. He and I were so happy! We sat through the whole movie without anyone needing to pee!!! It was the best! And I loved the movie. 

Earlier yesterday, I took all the kids to see The Grinch. So our family definitely took advantage of a short day of school and  $5 Tuesday at the movies! (Plus I had a Fandango gift card which I won for my Little Debbie Halloween costume, so WINS all around!)

Just in case you're wondering where this post is going... the answer is... nowhere. It's going nowhere. I'm just rambling while I wait to prep the next layer of Jell-O. So here, watch this video by Eclipse 6 - one of few parodies that I sincerely enjoy (I think this one's brilliant).

And I'll disappear while you're distracted.