I'm afraid my last post sounded very much like a huffing, puffing mom, who never slows down to appreciate her blessings.  Sorry about that.

This girl has a severe ear infection and I just finger combed her hair until she cried herself to sleep on a warm heating pad.  This picture is from this afternoon, when she cried herself to sleep in the office chair.  Looks like it's off to the Urgent Care with us in the morn.  But I was thankful, while I finally watched her sleep, that I hadn't been able to rush through bedtime.

The weekend was full of sleepovers and play dates and everyone was tired.
I woke the girls from their super late, cranky naps to make cookies.  Orange Chocolate Breakfast cookies to be exact.  I've told you about them before.  They are one of our favorites.

Oh okay, lets talk about Thanksgiving food.

I'm usually never craving a roasted turkey or stuffing.  And after you have a Thanksgiving Feast at the church potluck and the 1st grade class at school, it kind of removes any inkling of a craving I may have had.

But I love this new salad we had the other night for dinner, and I decided my in-laws would too.  I'm going to make This Brussels Sprout Salad to go along with all the turkey and stuffing.  It is so darn good.
I shaved my sprouts by dropping them through my food processor chute with the mandolin slicer attachment, which results in a lovely brussels slaw.  I cooked up some nitrate free bacon and remembered that raw shallots are too spicy for the girls, so I sautéed them in a little bit of the leftover bacon grease (just, like, barely any).  Tossed together with the orange/lemon dressing, it is just swell.

Now, Lola did heave when I asked her to chew the slaw like materials.  But the other girls gobbled it up and said lovely things about it.  I fridged the leftovers and they were super great for our lunch today.

So, I'm making that to pair with my mother in-laws sweet potatoes in an orange rind cups.  And Nathan's fried turkey.  Also, my mother-in-law spoke of replacing a traditional pumpkin pie with some ginger snap, pumpkin ice cream.  Now I'm getting excited.

Also, Lola made me a necklace out of her melty beads.