Saturday

Our Thanksgiving was really good even though we were so far away from family. In the morning Stephen went out and photographed the ward football game. Maybe we'll get the pictures up on his website at some point. Then we went over to one of Stephen's co-workers house for Thanksgiving dinner. There were quite a few people there and they had soooo much food!! It is a little different to have a "southern" Thanksgiving, with homemade macaroni and cheese, turkey noodle soup, the wide variety of pies (like pineapple) and of course sweetened and unsweetened tea. It really was quite delicious but not the same as being with our family. We are soo excited to be going to Arizona for Christmas! I am salivating over all the recipes that I want to try out!

It was kinda funny because Stephen and I both woke up on Thanksgiving feeling like it should be Christmas and that we should be opening presents, thankfully we still have some time before that gets here.

Today we woke up quite early and got tons of stuff accomplished. One of the things on our list was to make peanut butter cookies that would actually turn out. I had attempted to make the cookies on Sunday but failed miserably. Apparently my shortening had gone bad (and I mean BAD) I didn't remember what exactly shortening was supposed to look and taste like and after comparing it to the new stuff, I'm embarrased that I used the old stuff at all. As far as we can tell we think we took the shortening from Arizona to Texas over the summer and the heat must have destroyed it. Anyway we made the cookies today and they turned out alright. They were a little dry and crumble easily but at least they're edible!! Here's what they look like (Stephen took the picture)

I love to cook and bake but I seem to continually be messing up the recipe somehow. I was over at my sister Pollyanna's house one year for Christmas where we were making some cookies and instead of using the flour I used powdered sugar which were in identical containers. It seems as though I have trouble recognizing the items I am using in the recipe! Pollyanna loves to bring this event up because I have always wanted to be a chef and yet none of my stuff ever turns out quite as it is supposed to.

We also made one of my favorite recipes, Scalloped Potatoes. Our version uses cream of something soup instead of the typical made-from-scratch sauce and it is delicious! We add a little sour cream and partially boil the potatoes ahead of time and it turns out great. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of that one...maybe next time. Oh, and we are going to try and finish the couch today, so as soon as that's done I'll post pictures and man does it look good so far!