{"id":493,"date":"2007-11-22T22:53:53","date_gmt":"2007-11-23T03:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=493"},"modified":"2007-11-22T22:53:53","modified_gmt":"2007-11-23T03:53:53","slug":"Happy Thanksgiving from the Toones!","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=493","title":{"rendered":"Happy Thanksgiving from the Toones!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\">Here&#8217;s a glimpse of our Thanksgiving&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marthastewart.com\/good-things\/pinecone-turkey\" target=\"_blank\">Martha Stewart pinecone turkey project<\/a> (using one HUGE pinecone from the California redwood forest).  Quick, easy and fun. <br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/07-nov\/pinecone-turkey.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Thanksgiving feast table at Brian&#8217;s parent&#8217;s house&#8230; <br \/>rolls, turkey, cranberry sauce from a can, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes, <br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/allrecipes.com\/Recipe\/Scalloped-Corn\/Detail.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">corn casserole<\/a>, cranberry relish and <a href=\"http:\/\/allrecipes.com\/Recipe\/Cheesy-Green-Bean-Casserole\/Detail.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">green bean casserole<\/a> (the last 3 were my contributions with links to the recipes).   <br \/>Our pinecone turkeys joined the ceramic one \ud83d\ude42<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/07-nov\/table-feast\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A sneak peek at our family Christmas card picture!  <br \/>We&#8217;ve attempted it 3 times now, with a total of 12 pictures, but this one turned out the best. <br \/>Now, let&#8217;s see if I can get the cards in the mail before January&#8230;  But if I don&#8217;t, at least you faithful readers can appreciate it!<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/07-nov\/thanks-family\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Analise wore a pretty dress that Poppa Dale found at a University of Minnesota textile store.  It looked so pretty on her!<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/07-nov\/a-p-dress-rocker\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Modeling by the Christmas tree next to our front door. No, I wouldn&#8217;t normally have Christmas trees up this early, <br \/>but she found it in the basement garage this week&#8230; (see below)<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/07-nov\/a-dress-tree\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And insisted Brian bring it up for decorating with a couple ornaments she found digging around.  Then she piled all her toys under it as presents:)  <br \/>But just to set the record straight&#8230; she&#8217;s not going to be about the trees, decorations and presents, though I&#8217;m sure those are pretty exciting.  <br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/07-nov\/a-first-tree\" \/><\/p>\n<p>*EVERYTHING* is about Baby Jesus right now.  We&#8217;re trading off being Mary, Joseph, shepherds and Baby Jesus.  <br \/>Analise is wrapping &quot;cloths&quot; around Baby Jesus, and tucking him in (but really &quot;her&quot;, because it&#8217;s usually her dolls Annie or Dora&#8230; <br \/>kind of disconcerting to ask where Baby Jesus is, and to hear her say, &quot;She&#8217;s over here!&quot;)<br \/>I came home the other evening to find they&#8217;d arranged the chairs into a stable, with Dora playing the starring role.  <br \/>Analise wanted to sleep in the stable, and she&#8217;d brought nearly all the toys, crayons and puzzle pieces she could find out to be gifts from the wise men.  <br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/07-nov\/a-stable\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another glimpse at a recent Nativity set up, with the Care Bear in the starring role, with Tigger, Strawberry Shortcake and the Veggie Tales squash looking on.  Yes, the shoe is a perfect manger.  &#8230;<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/07-nov\/nativity-care-bear\" \/><\/p>\n<p>She&#8217;s played with my cherished Willow Tree nativity set for a long time, and <br \/>it&#8217;s always a little internal battle for me to let her play with something that&#8217;s so fragile and means so much to me.  <br \/>A couple weeks ago, I&#8217;d gotten a hand carved olive wood nativity set, very pretty and perfectly sized for her hands. Last night, I gave her the first of the Advent gifts I&#8217;d gotten, because, well, we can&#8217;t keep secrets around here:)  No, really, I knew she&#8217;d enjoy it every day until Christmas, and probably until Easter.  Oh, yes, and I&#8217;m hoping this one of her own will allow me to put mine on display for the holidays.<\/p>\n<p>But today at Toones, Beverly gave her a Precious Moments nativity set to keep at their house.  She was busy with that all afternoon.<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/07-nov\/a-nativity-thanks\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s everyone crowded into the stable.  But the best part was when I overheard her saying the wise men had to go home because their Mommy needed them.<br \/>Two quick recommendations&#8230; we&#8217;ve recently just won &quot;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bozthebearstore.com\/wowiebozowee.html\" target=\"_blank\">A Wowie Bozowie Christmas<\/a>&quot; featuring <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bozthebear.com\/home.asp\" target=\"_blank\">Boz the Bear<\/a> and &quot;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.veryfirstnoel.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Very First Noel<\/a>&quot;.  Both are wonderful, but The Very First Noel is a beautifully animated sweet story, featuring the Wise Men&#8217;s trek to the Holy Child, narrated by Andy Griffith.  Great music &#8211; Analise is already singing entire Christmas carols, awesome story, definitely a holiday tradition.  (Both <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bozthebearstore.com\/wowie-vfn.html\" target=\"_blank\">available together here, for only $19.99<\/a>). <br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/07-nov\/pm-nativity\" \/><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a glimpse of our Thanksgiving&#8230; The Martha Stewart pinecone turkey project (using one HUGE pinecone from the California redwood forest). Quick, easy and fun. The Thanksgiving feast table at Brian&#8217;s parent&#8217;s house&#8230; rolls, turkey, cranberry sauce from a can, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn casserole, cranberry relish and green bean casserole (the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkzLf-7X","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}