Worms? No Thanks...I'm a Vegetarian.

I hope everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving had a wonderful one and for everyone else, I hope you had a lovely weekend. I spent Thanksgiving with my fiance's family this year...one of several beautiful family get-togethers I've been fortunate enough to participate in. Don't get me wrong...I love my quiet, simple dinners with my immediate family, but with my mom from the Philippines and my dad from the north, we don't have a lot of "other family" near-by. We used to celebrate with some cousins of ours but haven't been able to connect as of late, but hopefully, we'll all get together soon. Anywho, every once in awhile, (maybe it's just me) but, I look forward to one of those big family celebrations with lots of friends and family everywhere. Very holiday-esque, no? My family has always celebrated traditional American holidays, but the older I get, the more I want to celebrate the holidays. The more I want to decorate, to bake, to cook, to gift wrap. I can't wait till my SO and I get a house so I can really get started decorating and maybe even host a holiday dinner. I'm taking notes from my Martha Stewart library...just in case.


We celebrated a traditional Thanksgiving with Turkey, dressing, gravy, dry dressing (a secret family recipe), macaroni & cheese, green been casserole, mashed potatoes, salad, rolls...am I forgetting anything? I mean, obviously, we had dessert (my fave part of any meal): pumpkin gooey-butter cake, brownies, ice cream, and apple pie. If you can't tell from the photo, I celebrated Thanksgiving with quite a few of my SO's family - his aunt & uncle (the hosts) and their two sons, his mom, his brother & his son, his sister & her husband & their son & daughter.

I had a funny conversation with one of my SO's nephews, Alex, while he was playing with this fish toy that had a worm on a pully that when you pulled made the fish's tail swim while the worm moved closer towards the fish's mouth. The conversation went something like this:

Me: What's that in the fish's mouth?
Alex: A worm.
Me: What's the fish doing with the worm?
Alex: He's eating it.
Me: Do you eat worms?
Alex: NOOOO! I'm a veg-e-TAR-ian! I don't eat meat!

It wasn't the answer I was expecting, but it was really too cute.



The weather was a bit chilly, but beautiful. The fire-colored leaves looked so brilliant against the blue-blue sky.



Bailey is really loving all the leaves. He loves to eat them...or pick them up in his mouth at least...



...even leaves waaaay bigger than his head, which is pretty cute.



Oh yea...and he likes sticks, too.



When we got back home from visiting my SO's family, we had a simple soup...gotta eat healthy after chowing down on all that turkey, right? This is the Chicken Provencal "Stoup" by Rachael Ray (click here for recipe). I thought the recipe was pretty good, but if you try it, be sure to get the olive tapenade. I was hesitant to buy it because I don't like olives, but a teaspoon-full stirred into my soup added a lot of flavor, and it didn't really make the soup taste too much like olives. It just added depth to the flavor overall.

Oh, and did I mention that we also got to celebrate my SO's mom's b-day? Happy birthday, you-know-who!