Naomi's Guide to Prepping the Bird

Let's see ... turkey breast for $8 or entire 11 lb. turkey for about half that? Not a tough decision. There was a downside though: Naomi would have to clean and prepare the turkey. This is not something she's had the opportunity to do yet in her life, so a learning experience was in store. And by "learning experience" I mean "photo op". Here is Naomi's guide to prepping the bird. (Move over Rachael Ray).

Step 1: Remove giblets. (Be sure to only use thumb and pointer finger so as not to goop up other digits).
Step 2: Carefully inspect bird cavity for missing neck of bird.
(Discover that bird neck is crammed in other end of bird).
Step 3: Display still-frozen bird neck to camera and make grossed-out faces (not shown).
(Be grateful that bird head was not included).
Step 4: Give bird a bath.
Step 5: Dry bird off with paper towel pat-down.
(Shave, lotion, deodorant and after-shave not necessary).

Step 6: (Not shown). Give bird a lovely spice massage and rub down, then throw it in the oven for three hours.

Step 7: (This is where I come in). Eat bird.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Downer family! It's our first Thanksgiving as a family, and it's also Brennan's 11 month birthday. Just one more month and he'll be a year old! Craziness.

We celebrated Thanksgiving quietly with just the three of us, watching the parade and cooking like crazy. I've never cooked a Thanksgiving meal before, so it was definitely new territory. After only one phone call to my mom for some needed advice, the meal turned out to be a success. Just to clarify, I didn't do it solely by myself. John helped out with some aspects, for which I was very grateful.

Since we are now a family, I wanted to start some of our own traditions. This year, I came up with the idea of doing a gratitude journal where we will record some of the things that we are thankful for that have happened in the past year. This way, we'll have a record that we can look back on each year to see the different ways that God has blessed us. We have definitely had a lot to be thankful for in the past year!

Brennan waiting patiently for his meal to be served.



The spread. I was pretty pleased.

Thanksgiving Fun Facts

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, I've been doing some looking around online at all things Thanksgiving to help get in the spirit. I came across this website from the History Channel that has some fun facts about the holiday. Enjoy!