A dinner with friends.

What is the most wonderful thing for any family with small kids is the opportunity to start family traditions. And that is what we have been up to. Since the girls are growing now we keep the traditions from the past years and add on to them, as the kids start coming up with ideas and kind of take over the family celebrations.
To save ourselves some time I set up the table in the evening. It was more like 12 in the morning as I was not ready to go to bed just yet. The girls made the individual cards for everybody, even Milana was able to participate and made a card for Evan, who was delighted to hold it in his little hands before dinner.
I also managed to make a "Mayflower" ship as a morning surprise for the kids. As we set down to have the feast, we read out loud the little cards that kids had written on what they were thankful for. It was too cute. Among other things, there were a lot of "thanks" for Mom, Dad, sisters, a brother, house, toys, animals, flowers, holidays, Grandma, Grandpa, friends and we all smiled at an "avrithing" card.
It was decided beforehand that the host family would be "Indians" and the guest family would be "the Pilgrims". The initial meet and greet was truly grand! Our friends pulled over with the three of their older kids sitting on top of the mini van as if they were on a "Mayflower". From our side, we had the girls dress up as Native Americans. But, mostly, our Tata made it the most fun for all. Ready to hear this? I was a little worried about the neighbors, but quickly it stopped to be a concern of mine as were belly laughing. He stripped to his waist, stuck a rabbit skin behind the belt of his pans, put on a head band with a turkey feather, grabbed a stick to simulate a spear and was running like mad pretending to be a warrior.
The dinner was fantabulous, very delicious and the leftovers lasted us for almost four days. The five frozen kernels of corn on each plate was a small reminder for everybody of the times of hardship for the first settlers.
I think we did a great job trying to keep the spirit of one of our most favorite American holidays. With talent show before the dessert time and playing games the day was very eventful and it was great to relax before the fire and enjoy a few quite moments before heading off to bed.

More Turkeys.

Today was a busy day. We did half of the cooking we had planned for our Thanksgiving feast and I am exhausted. Tomorrow is another part of our holiday marathon. I have been reminding myself to take it easy and have a good time with the girls. As we baked the cup cakes in the morning I thought we'd decorate them first thing in the morning the next day, but to have some fun I decided to let them get messy today, this way the counter top would be devoted to other things tomorrow. Do you think I could be so cruel as to let the girls wait till tomorrow evening to taste those yummy "chocolate turkeys"? I couldn't...

So far we have to put on the table tomorrow our traditional eggplant salad, beet salad, brussel cabbage, pumpkin/butternut squash soup, pumpkin roll and chocolate cup cakes. The plan for tomorrow is, of course, to get on with The Bird, mushroom stuffing, buttermilk biscuits, baked sweet and regular potatoes, and key limes mini pies. Our friends are bringing the spinach pie, potato salad and an apple strudel.
The table has been extended and set ready for 12. Oh, I am so excited and can't wait to see everybody at the table tomorrow.

Peanut butter cookies.

It's great to get all the help I can from the girls! Soon, they will take over in the kitchen!
Ten minutes in the oven, half an hour later there were 5 cookies left. I guess they were very yummy!

Our turkeys.

We have started to decorate our house for the Thanksgiving celebration. Everybody is so excited because we are planning on having a lot of good food and a great time! And it will be even more fun because we have our friends coming over and staying for a sleep over. And they, too, have three girls and a boy! So, we will have to extend our table and pull out more chairs!
After going for a walk today we brought a bunch of natural materials to work with. As soon as we got home, the glue gun got pulled out and put to be heated. The girls, including Milana, got in charge of making the turkey tails, while I was trying to figure out what to use from what we had picked up to put it together so it remotely resembles the famous bird.
The recycled cardboard paper, some glue (well, in Milana's case quite a lot of glue!), feathers and the tails came up simply perfect! Almost authentic! We read a book about how the wild gobblers have a beard, and the longer the beard the older the bird. They agreed with me to use the red leaf instead of a piece of red paper even though it would wilt a bit overnight. The acorns turned out perfect for the heads, sticks for necks and legs. But the highlight of the turkey we think are the wings! As we used the pine cones for the body the birds looked a bit too skinny, and the dried up milkweed pods were the detail we needed. Now our turkeys looked quite puffed up!
We have put five of them hanging on our lamp that we have above the table. So, it is kind of a center piece. I shouldn't forget to dust the chandelier before the dinner, it happened to draw a lot of attention now. And Mirek's reaction was quite an interesting one. "Oh, I guess I'll have to learn to like our new lamp decoration now", said he. Gobble, gobble, gobble...

Cousins galore.

Over the weekend we had a mini family trip to see the cousins, Zeke and Lydia. The kids had a great time running outside as the weather was warm as in early September. A day of Indian summer in mid November! What a treat!

Favorite spot right now.

When the cold days are lurking in it's time to enjoy the indoor activities. With the fire going every day everybody's favorite spot right now is the comfortable chair we bought almost for nothing on a garage sale a few years ago. It is serving well by the fire place.

Leona is doing such a great job reading all by herself. She picked up a book and was mumbling to herself, reading page after page, before I distracted her with my videotaping and picture taking. Her older sister was right there to encourage her and make sure Leona was reading the words correctly.

And, climbing on that chair has become Evan's baby gym activity. He loves to tap on the fish tank and enjoys seeing the fish go frantically in circles. Pulling on the lamp is a lot of fun for him as well. When a few light bulbs went into the garbage in a course of just a few days after Evan learned to play with the lamp side table by shaking the bits out of it, we had to move the lamp on to the higher ground.

I have been enjoying my piano practices. And today I was lucky to experience a double pleasure. That would be playing some new music and... getting a head massage and a wonderful hairdo by Ivana. She took the picture, too. Maybe soon you'll see more of me on the blog! A shot of my back IS a start!

A recipe to try.

I wrote an article for "Mother Earth News" and "Countryside" magazines. It's an article about our mushroom picking adventures. We'll see if it gets to be published, but I thought I'd share a very simple soup recipe. This soup has become a staple dish in our family. I hope you'll enjoy it, too.

Traditional Czech Peasant Mushroom Soup
(Serves 4-6)

Mushrooms (the more, the better), cut into pieces
Potatoes (5-6 medium size), cut into cubes
Fresh parsley
Flour
Olive Oil
Salt/Pepper

What to do:

As the water in a pot is getting to a boiling point throw in the mushrooms and potatoes, salt and pepper to your taste. While the soup is cooking, on a skillet heat a few table spoons of olive oil and add two table spoons of flour. Stir so that the flour does not burn, but gets a nice light brown color. Add the mixture to the soup. It will thicken and cloud the soup a bit, giving it an interesting flavor. At the very end add chopped parsley.

Our boys.

These are the boys in our family!

Playing together.

The gang has been playing together very adorably these days. It's a "crazy hat" day and Evan had to be a participant as well.