I can’t believe that it’s already the middle of November – incredible! Since it’s our first Thanksgiving in our new house, Alex is adamant about having Thanksgiving at our house. My family was already planning on having Thanksgiving at their house, so we were planning on asking his family over for dinner and then have everyone over for dessert afterward. Unfortunately, he waited too long to ask Beck, Kevin and Nora were already had plans to have dinner at Kevin’s parents house. So, it will just be Alex’s parents and us for dinner at our house. It will still be a good time and will probably be less expensive and less work – so that’s good. We’ll have a full house, though, when my family and Beck and her family come over for dessert. That will be fun! I think that my big brother and his family are even coming up from South Carolina – so I really can’t wait for Thanksgiving Weekend!
I haven’t started planning AT ALL yet for Thanksgiving dinner, so I better get a move on. I saw a recipe for Roast Turkey with Truffle Gravy on Cooking Light – I might try that this year… if I can find or order Truffle Oil in time. I freaking love Truffle Oil. Mmmmmm…
If Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away, then The Holidays must really be right around the corner. I think we’re planning on Christmas Eve with my family, Christmas Day with Alex’s family, and then going to PA to be with my PA family for a few days. We’ll need to be back before New Year’s Eve, though, since Alex is on call this year – so it looks like it will be a quiet New Year’s for me (which is A-OK with me, actually). The rest of this year is really going to fly by quickly – it will be 2010 before we know it!
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Filed under Holidays | Comment (1)I get these “Playbill Club” emails with discount Broadway ticket offers and this morning I got one for Irving Berlin’s White Christmas on Broadway! I love the movie White Christmas, and so does my Wham so I forwarded her the email right away saying that we should totally go see it while she’s home. She emailed me back saying that she’s going to bug Dad to get them to come home early. Alex is even on board with going – he suggested that they spend the night in NYC when they fly in and we’ll come meet them the next day to walk around the city and see the show. I’m SO excited! I hope it works out!!! 
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Filed under Holidays | Comment (1)… She’s asked me for my Christmas list like a million times. So, here it is. Sorry so late. I suck.
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Filed under Holidays | Comment (0)Well, the BIG news is that Scott proposed to Dodi last night!!! Yay!!!! I am SO excited for them and SO happy for Dodi!!!! Congratulations!!!! 
In other news, we put up our tree and other Christmas decorations this weekend. The place looks very cheerful. I posted a lot of pics here. Our tree is looking rather beat and tiny, so I think we’ll be getting a new one when this Christmas season is over (and they’re on sale). Less than 30 days left!
And lastly, Alex and I finally got our butts back to the gym this morning. I think this might be the first time since we got married. I’m already sore and was not a very nice person when Alex woke me up this morning. But I appreciate that he got us moving because I’ve gained about 20 lbs since the wedding (MY GOD!!!) and I REALLY need to do something about that!
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Filed under Diary, Holidays | Comment (1)Alex and I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time this year. We had his parents and grandmother over for dinner, then Beck, Kevin, and Nora came over for dessert. I made the turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, butternut squash soup, a pecan pie, and homemade pumpkin ice cream. Alex’s mom brought creamed onions, green bean casserole, cranberry relish, and chocolate chip cookies. His grandmother brought a lemon meringue and a pumpkin pie. Needless to say, we had a lot of food!
I started cooking on Wednesday after work. I made the pumpkin ice cream first – a recipe from my “Ben and Jerry’s Cookbook”. I used my Kitchenaid mixer ice cream maker attachment and the ice cream was super easy to make and turned out delicious! It tasted like liquid pumpkin pie with whipped cream. I made my pecan pie next, which turned out deliciously, even if it didn’t set right. I had Alex help me as my sous-chef that night and he did a lot of the chopping of veggies for me to use in my stuffing and gravy the next day. I roasted my butternut squash and started the soup preparation then stuck the mixture in the crock pot and then fell into bed.
Thursday morning, I got up at 7:30 and took the turkey out of the fridge to rest and come up to room temperature. I reviewed all my recipes and then started to try and tidy up the apartment. I can’t tell you where the morning went. I missed all the parades. It took longer than I expected it to make the stuffing (even with prepping all the veggies the night before!). The turkey went into the oven around 11am – about an hour and a half after I wanted it to go in. D’oh! Alex’s parents and grandmother showed up around 1pm, just as I was finished getting dressed after a light-speed shower. Patty helped me peel potatoes while Grammy, Keene, and Alex watched the first Harry Potter movie in the living room. The turkey came out of the oven around 4:30pm.
The turkey looked picture perfect!! Martha Stewart did right by me. I used her “Perfect Roast Turkey” recipe as well as her Chestnut stuffing recipe and they turned out perfectly. We reheated the sides as the turkey rested and then Alex carved the turkey. The table was overflowing with food and our new china and crystal. It looked great!
We all enjoyed stuffing ourselves with Thanksgiving dinner. Afterwards, Patty led the charge in the kitchen to clean and put away. I was very thankful for her motivation because otherwise, Alex and I probably would still have dirty Thanksgiving dishes. 
Beck, Kevin, and Nora came for dessert and we indulged ourselves with 4 different pies, cookies, and ice cream. Nora is almost 4 months old now and can almost sit up on her own and is starting to grab things. She can grab her nuk from Kevin and almost put it in her mouth herself! Alex is more interested in Nora now that she is starting to interact more with people and he spent some time holding her and playing with her. VERY cute! Nora is almost starting to crawl now. She’s going to be trouble pretty soon! Probably just in time for Christmas.
We had a great Thanksgiving. It was very different from in the past, but even though we had to do a lot of cooking and cleaning, it was somehow less stressful. I guess that was because we weren’t trying to hit two different places for dinner and dessert and all that jazz. I really enjoyed cooking and Alex keeps telling me how proud he is of me and how great Thanksgiving was. Yeah!
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Filed under Holidays | Comment (1)Actually, it’s Alison Wines. That’s the name of the vineyard that’s located in the Hudson Valley from which Beck got me a bottle of wine for Christmas. It was part of a “Things with your name on it” theme. She also got me a set of notecards with my “new” name on it: Alison Knowlton. (Giggle!!!) Anyway, I was sitting here thinking that it’d kind of be cute to have a bottle of red and a bottle of white on the table: one named Alison and the other named Alexander. I tried googling Alexander vineyard but I didn’t find any Alexander wines – just Alexander Valley Vineyards. Maybe that’d work…
Anyway, I thought that “AlisonWines.com” was a funny name for a website. I told Alex the name of he site and he said, “It’s true.” Whatever.
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Our Christmas tree!
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Filed under Holidays | Comment (0)So… There’s a lot to tell.
1. We had to put Ginny down. 
She took a turn for the worse and we had to do it. She was our baby and we still miss her every day.
2. We adopted two more cats. Finnegan and Fiona. Finn is about 3 months old and is black and white and very shy. Fiona is about a year old and is all black with a white spot on her chest and is talkative and bold. They are sweet in their own way, but we’re still getting to know them. And they’re not Ginny.
3. We moved. Our new apartment is a trillion times better than the old. It’s the top half of a two family home in a very nice neighborhood. It’s adorable. It is a little more expensive and we have to pay all of our own utilities in this apartment, so I’m anxious to see our first National Grid bill. But I’m very happy to be out of that disgusting old building.
4. No new news on the Wedding Planning front. I must: (1) Contact the priest who may be our officient to set up a meeting, (2) Figure out what we’re going to do for Ceremony music, (3) Find and book a Florist, (4) Figure out what I need to do to book blocks of hotel rooms, (5) Book the Bridal Suite for the night of our wedding – what a freaking kick in the pants that would be if we couldn’t have that room that night!, (6) Figure out what we can afford for a Honeymoon and figure out where to go and get on booking that, (7) Coordinate for bridesmaid dress shopping and decide to go with one dress for all girls or different dresses in the same fabric/color. That’s all for now. Gotta get on that stuff…
5. I haven’t started Christmas yet. No decorating done (still unpacking!) and no shopping done (oh dear Lord!).
That’s all for now. (OMG! OMG! STRESS! SO MUCH TO DO!!)
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Filed under Holidays, cats, wedding | Comment (0)Here’s the link to my Wish List.
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