Finishing Out the Old Year at Our Preppy Mountain Farmhouse

 

This is how I feel about the upcoming year.  Can you feel the excitement?

I'm sharing with you today moments from our final week of 2016.

 

Our youngest loved sporting her new Santa pjs on Christmas Eve.

 

I made cherry cream cheese danish for breakfast Christmas morning.  Pinterest-inspired, of course.

 

This is where I spent most of my time around Christmas: in the kitchen in my holiday apron.

 

One of the odd mishaps that occurred on Christmas day: my air bake pan that was full of corn casserole went screwy when the bottom rose up in the center, pushing the corn contents up and over the top and all through my oven.  We had Christmas dinner in a smoky kitchen.

 

I tried my hand at some creative appetizers found on Pinterest.  The meat/cheese/cracker Christmas tree on the left looked pretty close to the Pinterest pin; the veggie Santa not so much.

 

Believe it or not, these one-piece elephant pajamas were not a gag gift.  Our 14-year old loved them!

 

This hen somehow flew the coop and perched outside our kitchen window most of Christmas day.  She did get to share the scrapings of corn casserole from that mangled cake pan with a very large opossum who showed up in the evening.  I wonder if it's the same marsupial who hung out under our front porch as a baby this summer.

 

We drank two pitchers of this insanely awesome champagne punch.  The recipe can be found here at Between Naps on the Porch.

 

Watching our grandson open his first Christmas gifts was so fun, and he was very proud of himself.

 

This farmhouse felt big when we bought it, but after squeezing 17 family members in one room to exchange gifts and get pictures, it's evident that we need some extra space.  I'm praying big prayers this year for an addition so we can continue to host gatherings as our family expands. 

 

We have no exciting plans to ring in the new year since Hubby is on call at the hospital and our teen son needs a ride to/from a swing dance.  I'm hoping to not have to be the one to pick him up after midnight, and I can sip some of this delicious Choco Vine I got as a Christmas present while I watch old episodes of Gilmore Girls and Call the Midwife with our teen daughter.  It has really been an awesome year, and I thank God for all the blessings we've received in 2016.

I am so excited about what 2017 has to offer.  I plan on spending more days with our grandson while he's still a baby, learning how to use all the features on my new camera, renovating our farmhouse kitchen, watching our youngest take her first Holy Communion, and spending more time on blogging.

And I want all of you Preppy Mountain Farmhouse readers to know that I also count you among my blessings for this year.  My little blog has tripled in views, subscribers and followers this year thanks to all of you.  I cherish every comment I receive from you and am thrilled when I see in my stats the various cities and countries you are from.  Writing this blog and connecting with you is one of my high points every week.

Happy New Year, Everyone!  See you again in 2017. 

Of Thanksgivings Past

 

Thanksgiving is just a week away, and the only thing I've done to prepare is buy the turkey.  In case I don't have time to do any blogging between now and then, I thought I'd leave you with a few pictures of some of our Thanksgivings we've celebrated since we moved into our farmhouse ten years ago.

 

Let me start by saying that the images in my head of what our Thanksgiving should be like are similar to last year's Land's End cover of one of their holiday catalogs.  But the reality is that our celebrations really look like this...

 

Our youngest son was actually baptized over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2006, which is a beautiful thing, but he screamed throughout most of it.

 

This was the children's table in 2007, back when we had a smaller kitchen table and we could squeeze in a kids' table.  Now that our table seats 10-12, there really isn't room for much else in our farmhouse kitchen.  When we have lots of family here, we now have to split up into two rooms.

 

We have actually spent a number of Thanksgivings at Disney World.  The kiddos love it, but I never quite feel like it's really Thanksgiving when we have dinner there.  These three are all preteens and teens now.  How I wish I could have just one of those days back again, preferably without the tantrums.

 

Our only orange-haired son has majorly loved food all his life.  When his siblings and cousins were finished and playing, he continued to sit at the table and clean his plate...and completely devour this turkey leg.

 

 For many years when my house was full of toddlers and little ones, this is what our Thanksgiving dinner table really looked like.  Definitely nothing fancy, mismatched everything, sippy cups, and if you look closely you'll see that our one year old has her bare foot propped up on the table.  I'm fairly certain the vino got me through.

 

Remember that this is what I really wanted to see at our Thanksgiving dinner table.

 

In 2013 we were back at Disney and had reservations to eat at Mickey's outdoor barbecue.  There was a Thanksgiving buffet, and our table was right next to the dance floor so we could be up close to all of the Disney characters.  Unfortunately, our youngest was, and still is, afraid of nearly every person dressed up in a full costume.  She was in hysterics when Donald Duck tried to get her to dance with him, and we had to carry her out of there with her screaming at the top of her lungs. 

 

Thanksgiving 2014 brought us six inches of heavy snow, which was kind of fun since there was nowhere else we had to be.

 

It was the only year that our children got to go sledding before they ate Thanksgiving dinner.

 

Last year my youngest was six, and I had a Pinterest board full of Thanksgiving pins I wanted to try, so in addition to our traditional turkey dinner, I also tried out some new things earlier in the day, and had a great time.  With the children older now, I feel like all the traditional trimmings are getting kind of boring and I could make them in my sleep, but my kids have begged me not to change the menu.  I've agreed to only try one new dish this year, and it's only allowed to replace the green bean casserole.

So just in case I am frantically cleaning, cooking, baking, and decorating over the next week and don't get back to my blog, May All of You Have a Happy Thanksgiving with blessings in abundance.