Thanksgiving recovery...

We have returned! We had a wonderful time at the farm. My sister and I with Dad's help made the Thanksgiving Day feast since Mom was recovering from surgery. We did a good job... if I do say so myself. My main responsibility were the desserts...



I can't take credit for everything in the picture. I made the pumkin pie (two of them), the pumpkin/maple cheesecake, and the meringue shells with cranberry-orange filling. The sweet potato pie and the apple pie with whole wheat crust were brought by others. There is no cheesecake left... that disappeared quickly as did the meringue shells. I didn't even get to try one; but they must have been good.

After all this eating, the three older kids (my Elsie and my sister's two) were terribly wound up and circling the walls. Our dear friend John Elwood played his dulcimer (which he built... he builds them for a living) and sang kids songs and tried to accommodate every request...



I think he played Old MacDonald about five times.

Then the kids wanted snow which there wasn't any. So we got out my mom's Think Snow button pin. It is this yellow button that says "Think Snow" and then in fine print "Help Stamp out Summer". It was given to her as a gag gift at one time. When my sister and I were little and desperately wanting snow, she would get it out and rub it to make it snow. It worked some of the time. Enough so we really believed that it worked. So we thought we would give it a try. Mom put it on with great ceremony and rubbed it a bit, until Dad cautioned that we shouldn't rub it too much. We didn't want the house buried in snow. Sure enough, the next morning we had snow!





Now the kids are thoroughly convinced that Nana can do magic. Elsie spent at least 5 hours outside. She had a near meltdown with tears when we finally convinced her to come in for lunch at 1:30pm. She had me out before breakfast building a snowman and eating snow. I think she ate breakfast in 5 minutes and headed back out. There was much sledding and building and general tromping around. It started to melt and all the snow critters started to disappear, much to the distress of the kids. But the next morning... more snow!



Now we are back home in Portland where there is no snow much to Elsie's disappointment... and we are still working on that basement and Elsie's bedroom. Here is how we left the basement bathroom last week...



... nice and red. Dave put the floor in just before we left. We love it so much that we may do the entire basement floor in some version of industrial linoleum tile.

Maybe I can start decorating for Christmas this week too.... as soon as I find my dining room.