Thanksgiving

I have to say this may have been my favorite Thanksgiving ever. My parents and brother came from Indiana and stayed with us for the weekend, and Clint's dad joined us for the Thanksgiving day meal. The whole weekend was such a fun, relaxed time, just soaking up the treat of spending time together, which happens far less than we wish since we live so far away. Plus, it's just such an exciting time for all of us since our little girl is due in 5 weeks now!

It seemed to be an especially good time with my mom. I've never seen her so excited before, and it's so neat to share this time and experience with her. My view and understanding of her and our relationship has opened up to me in a whole new way! I appreciate now more than ever her mothering of me and understand so much more now the love of a parent for a child, something impossible to comprehend until becoming a parent yourself.

Truly, the time spent together was the best part for me, but I can't blog about Thanksgiving without touching on the food! I helped my dad get the turkey in the oven. It was my first time serving a whole turkey so he majorly helped with that. We also had a big spinach salad with grapes, red and yellow bell peppers, pecans, beets, and what I'm adopting as the Ross House Dressing. Recipe below. We also had sauteed green beans with leeks, a vegan twice baked sweet potato dish, pumpkin soup, and rolls my family brought down from an Amish bakery. For dessert we had vegan pumpkin cupcakes from a local bakery that are to die for. Everyone loved them.

It was a small menu because there were only six of us, and I didn't want to be so worn out from cooking that I couldn't enjoy the day. We all managed to stuff ourselves though and a good time was had by all!

Ross House Dressing
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
1-2 cloves crushed garlic
1 squirt yellow mustard