Christmas Tree Time

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year in the Keehn Household. Grandma and Grandpa Keehn were able to come all the way up here for a visit (finally!! YAY!) and we spent T-day cooking and eating wonderful food. The star of the day was the pumpkin pie, which we made not only from scratch, but from ultimate scratch - all the canned pumpkin was gone at the grocery store, so we hauled the massive jack-o-lantern pumpkin off the porch and made a pie out of him! This is the pumpkin that was larger than Obie! I still have about 10 pounds of cooked pumpkin that I haven't decided what to do with, along with several bags of puree in the freezer! Along with the pie we had ham, a turkey breast that came from a local hunter Rob works with, mushroom stuffing, green bean casserole - also from scratch, no funions for us! - mashed potatoes, gravy, acorn squash, Brussels sprouts, and of course can-shaped cranberry sauce. It was an amazing meal and only slightly topped by the ribeye steaks that Rob and Roy grilled for us the next night.

We spent our holiday eating, relaxing, knitting (for some of us), and watching Dr. Who. What more could a person want? On Friday we took the family up to see the town of Red Wing, which actually gave me and Rob a greater appreciation for the place, too. We walked around to all of the little local shops, did some Christmas shopping, and found a great chocolate shop. Did you know that people eat chocolate covered potato chips? I tried one and wasn't impressed. Chocolate covered pretzels are much better. We did remember that evening to take a Friday Photo, but I didn't post it then, so here it is now:

The girls are holding the turkeys they made at the library. Beatrice has her trade mark attitude going on, but I really like Maggie's smile in this one. She has the fluffiest hair!!

Roy, Lynne, and Laura left early Saturday morning which disappointed us all, but we managed to squeeze a little more Holiday Cheer into the weekend by getting our Christmas Tree. We drove up to a little tree farm up past Red Wing and let the girls run around a little bit and we picked out a great tree.

There were two black sheep in this nativity, but they weren't interested in being photographed, let alone petted. I love Maggie's smile in this picture, too. Again, Beatrice: Attitude.

Then we took a ride on a crazy motorized sleigh. The front had "eight tiny reindeer" flying up to the sky. They wobbled perilously as we bumped along over the back roads, but it was still pretty idyllic, especially with a few little snowflakes tumbling down.

I hope you had a wonderful Thankgiving, too. Oh, and did I mention that I got up at 4:30 to go get a steeply discounted gift for the girls? But that was enough Black Friday for me. I was back home and making breakfast by 6:15! I have the rest of the month to do my other shopping.