I am Full of Pie

Raise your hand if you overate on Thanksgiving.

Count me in. Not horrible, but definitely over the comfort zone.

While I'm a pumpkin pie lover, Eamonn is not. Apparently if you don't grow up eating things that are pumpkin flavored, you never really develop a love for it. I have yet to meet someone from England who says they like pumpkin.

Anyway, I was debating about what our second pie flavor would be on Thanksgiving. The boys and I decided on apple after I found THIS recipe. Sometimes I come down a little hard on The Pioneer Woman because her recipes will put the average citizen into cardiac arrest. But on Thanksgiving, I'm willing to throw her a bone. It's time to throw caution to the wind.

I'm telling you, this apple pie is the bomb. The final two pieces need to go away before I suffer death by pie.

And definitely make the hard sauce for the top. Wow.

I made an attempt to have a gluten free Thanksgiving. I did it with one exception: the sausage stuffing Eamonn makes. I just ate a little because it's worth a little stomach cramping.

I made gluten free pie crusts with THIS recipe. I was a little worried because sometimes gluten free = nasty. But it was a total hit. Eamonn was complimenting the crust. When they were all finished eating, I dropped the gluten free bombshell.

Next up: Gluten Free Christmas. I'm already plotting and planning.

Curly Girls

Have I really not posted for a week? There was a bit of a frenzy getting out of town for Thanksgiving. We were supposed to leave at about 2pm on Wednesday to drive to Utah to hang with Erin's clan for the holiday. I had to work on the mountain until 1pm.

But on Monday, there was talk of a snow storm. The same snow storm that had dumped 2 feet of snow on Utah. And it was rolling towards Colorado.

I raced around getting everything ready to go, but braced myself, and the boys for the fact that we just might not get there. In fact, I got everything ready to go except for my underwear, apparently, and waited to see what happened.

We did indeed wake up to a snow storm on Wednesday. I headed out on slippery roads to work. It took longer than usual, of course, and I was late on my first day, which was opening day. Nice.

They didn't fire me.

I got off early and by the time I drove home, the roads were decent. We decided to make a run for the border. Of Utah, that is.

Despite a few slippery roads coming over a pass in the last hour of our drive, we made it with no problem.

The cousins hadn't seen each other in over a year! The kids played, we all ate too much (remind me to make gluten free stuffing next year), I found a new favorite Christmas movie in Christmas in Connecticut (who recommended that to me? Was it one of you?), and then we had to drive home a day early because another snow storm was coming.

Such is life in the mountains.

So why is this post called Curly Girls? This is me with my niece Caroline, age 2.

Finn and I have been joined by another curly top. We totally had curly mojo going.

And then there was some football watching because it was The Game.

Unless you're not from Ohio or Michgan and then you don't really care. And we had to leave part way through to drive home anyway.

I ate a lot of popcorn in the car and listened to a murder mystery while the boys watched movies.

And I tried to avoid the zillion deer that felt they needed to wander into the road at dusk.

We are all still in one piece. Us and the deer.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm so full of scalloped oysters that more photographs are the perfect thing for today. Plus, I think the tryptophan is kicking in. I'm feeling really drowsy.

As a random aside, I made my own gravy today and it actually worked. A first.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Like my new avatar? It's me peeling potatoes this morning. Declan was taking random photographs and I thought a picture of me on my blog peeling potatoes was totally appropriate since it is the room of the house where I spend the most time.

Some fall pictures from Colorado and other miscellaneous stuff.