So how was your Thanksgiving?

Our Thanksgiving was a little different from the norm:  A week or so before the big day, my sister in Kansas called and invited Cliff and me to spend Thanksgiving with her, her son, her grandsons, and their families.  As soon as she gave me the invite, I was pretty sure we would go.  For many years, Maxine has spent her winters in Texas, so there haven't been a lot of opportunities to spend the winter holidays together.  Also, I had not seen my nephew's family for years.  Add to this the fact that my sister is almost 87 years old, and the fact we had not seen the house she bought in Kansas... well, we just had to go, that's all. 

 It's a big house for one person.  Maxine keeps it shining and spotless, as is her custom.  It was difficult for her to sell the home in Kansas City that she and her husband built back in the 60's, but she felt at her age it would be better for everyone if she lived nearer her son and his wife.

I had not met my youngest great-nephew's wife and two children.  All I can say is, my nephew has beautiful grandchildren!  Here you see two cousins enjoying one another.  My great-nephews live near one another in Oklahoma, so their children are as close to their cousins as if they were siblings.  

This is the youngest

Both my great-nephews have beautiful, well-behaved children.  It was a pleasure to just soak up the family time, watching the kids play.

My nephew carved the turkey while his wife and his mother bustled around in the background.  Dinner was great.  Desserts were in such abundance that I was able to secure two pieces of Maxine's perfect lemon pie, probably my favorite item on the menu.  

Maxine always makes sure that everyone present sits at the same table, rather than spreading out all over the house like we do here.  It's a nice custom.  On the left is the wife of the youngest great-nephew, the mother of the beautiful baby you see in the picture above.  This was our first time to meet her.  We liked her just fine.  

My sister and me, with one of her great-grandchildren playing games on his Ipod.  We noticed that several of us were wearing red that day.

So there you have it, a little peek into our Thanksgiving day.  It really was worth the almost five-hundred-mile round trip; gasoline was comparatively cheap, too!  The oldest grandson took care of the cow and calves for us and made it possible for us to do this.    

Watching the baby grow up

A child can be quite a distraction when you are trying to cook, but Cora is growing up and actually enjoys taking part in my kitchen activities.  We had not seen her in almost two weeks, so when she arrived this morning with the usual voluntary kisses and hugs, we were ecstatic.  She is 15 months old. 

I've been craving apple pie for a long time, but that's something we shouldn't have often.  Also, I really don't enjoy peeling enough apples to make seven cups of slices.  But the craving overcame my laziness today.  

I went to my chair in the living room with a couple of big bowls and a knife and proceeded to peel, core, and then slice apples.  Baby immediately became interested and wanted on my lap.  It was quite a feat to find a place for her, what with two bowls on my lap and a paring knife in hand, but I managed.  She was a lot of help, picking up peelings and dropping them in with my sliced apples.  When I cut the stems from the apples, I handed them to her and told her it was a stem.  She looked at it closely, felt it, and even tasted it.  Any time I'm doing this sort of thing with her, I keep up a constant dialogue.  

With sufficient apples sliced, we moved on to the kitchen, where I put Cora in her high chair.  I set the bowl of sliced apples on the tray of her high chair and measured in the sugar, then the cinnamon and nutmeg.  I let her smell each of the spices, and gave her a taste of granulated sugar.  Once the apples were prepared, I mixed up the flour, salt, and Crisco for a pie crust.  I got Cora's home-made play-dough out of the refrigerator, handed her a butter knife, and let her cut while I worked the Crisco into the flour.  Then I scooted the high chair over to the table, which I had wiped off and dried in preparation for the pie dough.  

I set the bowl of Crisco-flour mix on the tray of her high chair and let her watch me add seven tablespoons of water, still talking all the time, telling her what I was doing.  She watched closely as I rolled out the pie crust, and I called her attention to what I was doing when I put the bottom crust in the pie pan.  Then I made sure she was watching when I poured in the apple slices.  "This is how we make pie," I told her.  I probably mentioned pie twenty times while I was working at it, and before long she was repeating "pie" when I said it.  

I asked her several times if she wanted out of the high chair, but she always shook her head no.  After I had scooted her over near the oven so she could watch me put the pie in the oven ("hot-hot", she said), I started a hamburger-rice casserole, and she watched and listened all the way through that, too.  I measured a cup of rice on her high-chair tray.  She poked a finger into the cup of rice, and I sprinkled a few grains on the tray.  She picked a few of them up and dropped them on top of the full cup.  

She sat in that high chair for at least an hour and fifteen minutes.  Every time I asked her if she wanted down, she shook her head no.  

I believe the kid has a future as a chef.  

She also insists on feeding herself.  If she is really hungry, she will let me give her some bites, but once she starts feeling full, she wants to do it herself.  

On another note, she can pee at will now, so if I take her to the potty, she will put something in it.  Her mom and grandma have been working on that, and today I decided to join in the training.