Turkey-Gate 2014

Turkey-Gate, the great pumpkin pie disappointment...this Thanksgiving was a trip! Sit back with your leftover pecan pie and read on!

Everyone knows that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love it. I love the watching the parade in my pjs. I love the abundance of food and people. I love hanging out with family all day! I love everything about this day.

About six or seven years back, I started a tradition - The Day after Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. We always get to spend Thanksgiving day with John's mom's side of the family. Charlie and Janice go all out, waking up at 4:30am to start preparing food. Even though we all live in the same town, life gets to be so busy, and Thanksgiving is the day I know we'll get to spend a lot of quality time catching up with everyone.

 

And Evan talks about seeing Mamaws daily....I mean DAILY. So anytime he gets to spend time with her is a special day. He loves loves loves that special lady. We all do. And Luke...well, he love bubbles.

 

TurkeyGate 2014
I woke up Friday giddy. Pure giddiness. I had made a schedule starting at 9am. I had pages of notes for my day of cooking. One major big problem. Most people know my memory isn't the greatest, hence the reason for this blog. Last year we got a HoneyBaked Turkey from Kroger. Two years before that we ordered a turkey breast from Fresh Market. I just don't do the whole all day roasting turkey thing. I have heard too many horror stories; not being thawed, meat to tough, not being cooked all the way. All my other dishes I have full confidence about. The main dish?? I was leaving that to the professionals. I was convinced we got the Honey Baked Turkey the day after Thanksgiving last year. John even questioned me about this and I dismissed him with a wave of my hand and said, "Oh no, they have PLENTY left on Friday." John, being the amazing husband he is, treks up to Kroger Friday morning. No turkey. I call around and the Krazy Kroger (one on Byhalia) told me they had some. I asked if they could hold it for me. She said, "Oh, they are handing out samples. If they are passing out samples, they have plenty." Dirty dirty lie. John drove there and they didn't. While he walked around the store, I called Fresh Market. They had some, but they wouldn't be ready for another hour. I was officially freaking out. John had dropped several hints about the fresh turkey he had already in his basket as he walked around. I was still calling places. Long story short, he convinced me that millions of people cook a turkey every year. We could do it.

As he drove home, I frantically searched for tips on how to roast a turkey while crying talking to my mom. Everything I found told me brining my turkey over night was the way to go. Great....I needed to serve 13 people in less than 6 hours and I did not have a brined bird. I decided an hour of brining was better than none. We put the turkey in the brine for one hour while I continued to search for roasted turkey recipes. Once I found Ina Garden's I knew I was done. But hold up...I didn't have a roasting pan. John and I had every dish we owned out on the counter trying to fashion something that resembled a pan and a rack. It was useless. Trying not to freak out for the second time that day, I call my mom again. Of course, my mom saved the day. John jetted over to her house to pick up the pan and rack. I quickly made up Ina's 'paste' substituting what I didn't have in my pantry with what I did have. No thyme?? Just add more rosemary. No sage?? Just drop some more poultry seasoning in the mix with a dash for garlic and wine seasoning. Surely, it'll come out okay, it's just seasoning! By this time the chef had already allowed the wine to start flowing....

Then came the hard part. I had to get this paste UNDER the skin. I found some strength that could have only come from above to block out what I was actually doing and rub this paste under the skin. It really was a higher calling at this point.

The turkey is wearing more make up than I am.

I crossed my fingers, opened the convection oven, and slide that bird in. Wouldn't you know...the damn thing wouldn't fit in the oven. Because it is a convection oven, there is a fan with a heating element in the back. The rack in the roasting pan was hitting that fan and not allowing the oven to close. Freak out number three, if you are keeping score. We shifted racks all over the place to finally fit him in.
Everything else went just as planned with side dishes coming together in perfect harmony. After 2.5 hours, my turkey was roasted to perfection. John did the honors of carving the turkey, with some special little helpers (who also helped me with the side dishes!)

John deemed it "the best turkey he's ever eaten" (he had to say that - he was the one that convinced me to roast it) and all was well. The turkey went perfectly with the green bean bundles, dressing (John's mom's recipe), sweet potato souffle, brussel sprouts gratin, corn casserole (mom's dish) and roll. A spectacular feast!

Bellies were full, hearts were fuller. We had some missing family and friends due to illness and it wasn't the same without them. :( Plus there are waaaaaay too many leftovers.

 

 

The Great Pumpkin Pie Disappointment

I usually make dessert for Thanksgiving at Grandmom's house. When I told Evan this he flipped with joy over pumpkin pie. Sadly, pumpkin pie was not on my menu, which produced great big crocodile tears. Seriously....the child who eat 6 things was crying because I was not making a dessert in which he has never eaten. (I might have mentioned he is a tad bit dramatic.) He swore up and down he loved pumpkin pie, which made Luke then swear he loved pumpkin pie, which then made me the bad guy for not making their favorite dessert. Thankfully, the youngest one changed allegiances when I mentioned I was making special cookies. The big one...not so much.

During one of the many freak outs I mentioned this to my mom, who happened to make an entire pumpkin pie for her and Jed. She, as good grans do, jumped at the chance to make her grandson happy. She brought 2 pieces of pumpkin pie for Evan and Luke.

Once dinner was over, Evan jumped at the chance to eat his pumpkin pie. Family and friends know how picky he is and started questioning when he tried pumpkin pie. He answered that he tried it and liked it a YEAR ago at his Kindergarten Thanksgiving feast. A year ago but never said a word. So we cut him off a piece. He takes a forkful of pie and sticks it straight in his mouth. Let me back up. This is the kid who took twenty solid minutes to eat a bite, not a piece, a bit of cheese. Twenty minutes and many many sobs. When the pie went into his mouth John said "What in the world is happening right now." He started chewing. About 4 chews into it his face screws up and he bolts out of his chair screaming and crying. He grabs and towel and tries to wipe the pumpkin pie out of his mouth. I get him to the trash can where he can at least spit it out. The entire room is crying with laughter. Poor Evan was crying for other reasons. Thankfully, mom wasn't too offended by his reaction. She shouldn't have been. The other pie she brought was devoured by the people who DO know what is good. 

A Mouse and a Ninja go to school...

St. George's has a week that celebrates children's literature with various activities for all the kids. This coincides with the Book Fair that is a favorite for all!

This year was the first time Evan got to participate in some of the events.

First was the Book Fair Poster Contest. Evan has really taken an interest in drawing and art. Me, who could have qualified for an IEP in art, am not a lot of help, but I did want to foster his new passion. I encouraged him to design a poster. We chatted about it for a couple of days before finally committing to do the poster. Being mom of the year, I kept forgetting to bring home the poster. Funny enough, this lead to why I think he won. I told him a lot of artist sketch ideas before finalizing their drawing/creation. Evan miiiiiight have watched a season couple of Project Runways with me, so he's not unfamiliar with the concept. He spent two days sketching and editing his idea. He changed the title three or four times, but the concept stayed the same. He asked me to look up things on the internet so he could research different types of things he could include. Most, if not all, of this was done after school before dinner on HIS OWN TIME. Like I said, he has a new passion.

The night I brought home the poster, I knew my type A personality had to walk away. He found his sketch and got started. The ONLY thing I helped him with was the spelling of some of the words, and yes, I still had to do that at a distance. His concept was that the ocean is filled with all different sea creatures who had books as their bodies. There was a diver who wanted to 'learn more about stuff' so he was going to "Dive Into the Ocean of Curiosity".  He worked on it for about 2 days. He was three fourths the way through when he broke into sobs. He messed up his turtle. It was ruined. I sat down with him and explained this happens to artist all the time. They take their 'mistakes' and turn them into part of the masterpiece. Perfect isn't what people want. No one and nothing will ever be perfect. I then told him the moment this project wasn't fun, we were done. This wasn't mandatory. This wasn't for a grade. This was something we were doing because he likes art. He said, "I just can't explain it, but I do want to and I don't want to enter the contest." We decided to sleep on it before he made a decision.

The next morning before my alarm had even gone off, Evan bounded into the room and announced he was back in the game! He would fix his turtle and finish his poster! I was very proud of my little dude for making such a grown up decision. He spent the rest of the morning eating his breakfast and finishing his poster. The only advice I offered him was to trace his title in black. Otherwise, this is a completely child created project!

The following week, Evan was awarded FIRST PLACE in the Book Week Poster Contest for his grade. (For the record, our art teacher judges the posters without knowing which kid did which poster.)  He was on cloud nine. He was recognized in chapel by his librarian, Mrs. Williams. He also won a $10 gift certificate to the book fair! That prize helped him buy his favorite book at the book fair. I am still so stinking proud of him!

Evan also participated in the Book Character Parade. Evan dressed as the ninja from The Boy Who Cried Ninja, which was given to him by his California family. We just so happened to have a ninja costume from Halloween. Funny how that worked out. :) I was a mouse from When You Give a Mouse a Cookie. The mouse get up was 50% off at Target the week after Halloween. I love it when a plan comes together.

 

The Big Easy

Someone once asked me about my marriage and how we stay so ‘in love’. She said, “In all your pictures you look so happy and so in love.” I jokingly replied, “Well, I don't post the bad ones!”

 

John and I take our relationship very seriously. We have been together 20 years (married 13). We know what pisses each other off and try our hardest not to do those things. We also know each other’s love language. We can pinpoint most of our arguments, hurt feelings, and general negativity to when one of us has an empty tank. You see, when my love language tank (quality time) is empty, I get irrational, distant, and passive aggressive. I know this. John knows this, so we both work hard to keep my tank full and the same for him and his love language.

 

One thing we do to keep our marriage as a high priority is take a yearly trip just the two of us. For our 10th anniversary we went to Cancun. We have been looking for a way to go back there ever since. In the mean time, we have been taking ‘long weekends’. For my birthday this year we went to New Orleans.

 

We walked around the first night. I stepped my feet on Bourbon, just to say I did. I just couldn't look at a puddle of water and not think it was pee. We ate at Broussard's and found a cute little bar for after. 

We stayed at The Saint. John stayed here on a guys’ weekend and liked it. When we tried to make our hotel reservations, it was literally the ONLY place that had a room. I checked and checked for events going on that weekend and came up blank. We found out when we got there, that a national realtors conference that weekend PLUS a LSU and Saints game. Football….the one thing I didn’t check. We still had our room, so we considered ourselves lucky. I chatted with one guy who was just in town for the game who was paying almost twice what we did for a room.

   

The Saint is like nowhere I have ever stayed. The foyers has big long white pieces of fabric hanging from the ceiling and very very large and ornate lighting. The elevator has a “Play Naughty” rug and old black and white movies playing on a TV that hangs on the wall. The hallways are all blue-lit. The room was just fabulous. Padded headboards, beautiful carpet, navy ceilings, white furniture and screenprinted shades in the bathroom. It really was unique.

 

The hotel has a bar called The Burgandy Bar (the hotel is on Canal and Burgundy). Everything is red. Small bar, big chandelier and even bigger price tags on their drinks. Outside the bar in the lobby is a pool table and this chair. I loved this chair. One slightly tipsy evening, I ran up to another couple sitting in it and begged to take their picture. They said okay and just smiled. I laughed and said, “no no, with your phone. I don't want a picture of y'all!” Wow….classy Amanda.

Friday we went to the World War II Museum. Everyone I talked to about NOLA, mentioned this museum. I am not a history buff, but John is, especially WWII. We watched the 4D movie Beyond All Boundaries which was narrated by Tom Hanks. So so so well done. If you happen to go to the museum, include that part in your package! The museum itself was amazing. By far the best museum I have been to. John and I were silent the entire 2 hours we walked through it. There was so much to take in. To be honest, now that I think about it, there wasn't a lot of talking by anyone in the museum. It's one of those places I could walk through again for 2 solid hours and see completely different things. I learned so much history I never knew and gained quite the appreciation for my freedom. 

Friday night we took in a movie. The theatre offered beverages and food brought to your seat. On option was popcorn with truffle oil. Truffle popcorn…I didn’t get any. Really crazy story; we went to buy tickets and they were sold out of the movie we wanted to see and the other ones didn't really fit our schedule. We walked around for a bit talking about what we were going to do. I decided we needed to go back and just see the other one we wanted and work out the rest of the night later. It was vacation after all! When we got back there, there was a couple in front of us and a family of 4 in front of them. The family was returning their tickets because they had two teenagers, but no one under was allowed in the theatre because they serve alcohol. The family just happened to be returning 4 VIP tickets to the show we were originally tried to see. The couple in front of us got the first two, and we got the second. I (of course) started talking to the couple in front of us because we were now the proud owners of 4 VIP seats. The theatre seats 24 people. Each chair is a recliner. Full fledged recliner! The couple beside us laughed when we said we were on vacation and at the movies. I told them, the only way I get to see a movie at home was if it was at noon and animated. 

Saturday we walked the city with no plans. It was fabulous. I did yoga in a park. We found a place where you could watch glass being blown and go back into their workshop. We found lot of shops and did too much shopping, but like the movies, not something we get to do together at home.

Saturday night we ate at Luke. There was no way we could pass up a John Besh restaurant with the same name as our youngest! It was delicious! We enjoyed the best bowl of gumbo (I was on a search) and a fine fine dinner. We went to another bar, Swizzle Stick, after that where they served all their drinks off a large block of ice that was in the middle of the bar.

But the BEST meal we had was breakfast at The Ruby Slipper. WOW. I have decided why breakfast was both of our favorites. We’ll splurge on a nice meal at home. John takes me out about once a month and we eat well. We NEVER splurge on breakfast. So to eat such big amazing meals at the start of our day was a real treat. Ruby Slipper – keep it on your list! 

But the best part of anytime away together is how we reconnect. It’s so nice not to worry about who pushed who, or if the lunches are packed, or the laundry sitting in the dryer. It’s just about us. Thank you John for keeping US a priority.

 

Halloween 2014

This year, I feel like Halloween was met with as much excitement as Christmas! There were tons of decorations around the neighborhood and excitement with the boys. We waited to carve the pumpkin because of the temperatures. John told the boys the only way he’d carve the pumpkin was if they cleaned it.

Side note….I prayed for a long long time that God would bless me with boys. I really didn’t feel like I would do good with the drama that usually comes with girls. I mean, I am dramatic, but there is a difference between the two. I don’t do drama very well. God laughed and then gave me Evan…the most dramatic little boy ever.

 

We lucked up with costumes. On a Costco trip Evan fell in love with a ninja costume. This was a huge score because a) it was $15 and b) ninjas were not cool 6 months ago. As we were looking, we asked Luke what he wanted to be. He promptly answered without a beat Spider-Man. Guess what Luke was last year…yup…Spider-Man. Score again! The adult Asbells were feeling quite lucky at this point. 

Both boys dressed up several times before Halloween. What’s a good costume if you can’t wear it a bunch?! They also loved telling everyone they saw what they were going to be. Luke would shout Spider-Man at the top of his lungs and Evan would go into some ninja like move while telling people about their costume. 

Both boys had great Halloween parties. Luke got to eat a spoonful of icing and Evan had a whole hour of fun. The parents did a great job organizing these events. I am very lucky that all I have to do is walk down the hall to get to the events.

This is our scary face!!

   

 Friday night came and it was cold….I mean COLD! With a full belly and the excitement at an all time high, we trooped upstairs to put on our costume. But low and behold, Luke had changed his mind. After WEEKS of telling everyone he came in contact with that he was going to be Spider-Man!! He literally sat in the middle of the hallway with his arms crossed and said “I not going to be Pider-Man.” I took one look at him and immediately said “JOOOOOOOHN…come deal with this.” 99% of the time he has more patience with this kind of thing. I tend to be too strict.

If I had been alone, it probably would have gone down like this: 

Luke: I not going to be Pider-Man. 

Me: Then you NOT going trick or treating. 

Luke: *lays in the floor and screams and cries* 

Me: **Walk away until he decides Spider-Man is good enough to wear or he falls asleep because SURELY this manic episode is induced by lack of sleep.** 

And the boys really ask why I dress up like a witch every year…. 

But that is why God sent me John Asbell. John picks up Luke and takes him to the closet. He presents Luke with all of his choices, otherwise known as, all the old Halloween costumes. Luke, with great excitement, tells us he is going to be IronMan! Well great….Halloween hasn’t been cancelled. Candy for everyone!!

     

The Lawsons came over to trick or treat with us. Gemma was the cutest little Mike Wazowski. Quinn also joined us for tricks and treats! Since I wasn’t feeling 100% John volunteered to take the boys trick or treating. Have I mentioned how spoiled I am??? When they came running back to the house only 50 minutes later, my first question was “What’s wrong?? What happened?” I expected them to be gone much much long. John explained that the boys participated in some sort of speed trick or treating spiriting from house to house. Sure enough, their buckets were full and they had rang almost every doorbell. The boys delighted in dumping all their candy on the counter and comparing treats. I, of course, let them have too much candy, but hey – the day only comes around once a year. 

I am pretty sure, like last year, we’ll have candy until April.