Picture Pages, Picture Pages...

So we had our Thanksgiving dinner a week early. I remembered why I bumped it up early - we have plans to go to the Semper Danica Christmas party on the 29th, and I didn't want to be doing 2 huge things in the same week.

Semper Danica is a gamer's guild - they have members that play all sorts of MMORPG's (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). I think I'm the only American in the guild - one of the requisites is you must speak/read/write Danish. They're a good bunch of folks there, and both Hubby and I are looking forward to an evening getting to know the people behind the avatars. There's around 100 people signed up for the party (across all the games I think the guild has over 1000 members), so it should be a very interesting night.

Matthias ate his dinner a bit early and was unfortunately ready for bed before Hubby's mother, brother and Katrina came over for dinner. I think Vivi was disappointed, but we couldn't justify keeping the baby up past his bedtime (and thus deal with a screaming child for most of the night) just for her to see him on that day. She came over the day after and had an hour or so with him here. He's also FIRMLY into the "Stranger Danger" period where it took just about the entire hour for him to warm up to her. This means we'll have to bring him over to her house EARLY the day of the Christmas party so he's got time to like her again before we leave, otherwise her house will be hell.

Matthias is also becoming VERY independent. (He doesn't get that from me, no - not at all.) He wants to feed himself (whether it be the bottle OR spoon feedings) so we've had to be a bit creative with feedings so that we're still in control of what goes on. This, of course, doesn't mean he doesn't get to have fun on his own:


Here we're eating Turkey with veggies.

Or, just the bowl - take your pick.

I apparently wasn't shoveling it into his mouth quick enough, so he decided to try to go get his own.

At least he's realized that yes, plastic tastes like crap when you try to eat it.





I give him points for being able to get the spoon into his mouth reasonably well.


At least the first few attempts, and then he gets excited that he's feeding himself and yeah... he's no longer quite as neat.









Slowly but surely, we get messier and messier...

You'll notice it's a different spoon.

I started giving him his own spoon to hold while I'm feeding him with another, so when he opens his mouth to feed himself, I can sneak my spoon in first and WOW MOM, I'm DOING IT!!








Here's the aftermath:

All in all, not too bad - it's not in his hair or in his ears.









So, as far as Turkey day went, yes I made lots and LOTS of food. It's a family tradition from Gram Chase!

The prep:


The bird itself was a little over 10 pounds, and had been slaughtered the day before we picked it up.

They missed a feather or two which I took care of.

I didn't mind the thought of a freshly slaughtered bird, so long as it wasn't still, well, WARM when I picked it up, know what I mean?




This is the beginning of my stuffing. There's a bit of garlic, vidalia onion, celery and leeks in butter, with salt, pepper and some herbs.

Mom uses oysters in her stuffing but yeah, I hate fish.

It was bad enough just making the clam chowder for Hubby's family, the smell made me want to gag.





Here's how it went into the bird.

Added Sage, Thyme, Rosemary and a bit of Basil with diced apples and fresh cranberries.












Now silly me, I forgot to take a picture of the bird when it came out of the oven before it was carved, as well as a photo of the chowder (which everyone said tasted very good. They also thought it was funny I made Hubby test it for taste, because I wasn't going to do it.)


So, here's a picture of the right half of the bird - the left half is gone.

Hubby's brother Jonathon got the leg and picked it clean.

I had done what Mom does basically, but with my own twist to it - she likes to rub it down with crisco oil, I used herbed butter both under and on the skin itself. The skin came out nicely crisp and the meat was tender and juicy.




I made a cake from scratch, but was lazy and used some Betty Crocker frosting.

This was actually my 'birthday' cake to myself.

I figured it'd be easier to get it all eaten if I made it for a time when we had company, that way we wouldn't be stuck trying to finish it off just Hubby and myself.





We had been out shopping in Føtex when I spied frozen blueberries in the veggies section. Normally blueberries are HELLATIOUSLY expensive here in Denmark, especially if they're out of season (5$ for a cup of berries), but these weren't bad.

So I grabbed a bunch of bags and decided to make a blueberry pie.

OMG YUM. It's been ages since I've had a blueberry pie.




Of course, I made a pecan pie as well. Neither pecan pies nor blueberry pies are very common in Denmark, so it was quite an experience watching everyone else eat them.

Hubby was surprised by the blueberry pie - it tasted nothing like he had been expecting - he had been expecting it to be sweeter and fruitier - and the cinnamon was a complete shocker.






Here's Jonathon and Katrina having coffee after the desserts.

I made sure they went home with some of each cake because yeah, I didn't want to get stuck with it all.











This is Vivi, Hubby's mother. She brought extra insulin for desserts and then complained she should have brought a bigger size pants to change into.


Yep, a Thanksgiving dinner just like Gram Chase used to make!

Happy Birthday to me...

Yep, another year older.

It's a mixed bag of feelings today; I'm happy with my life as it is - Hubby and the baby and all. It's still a bittersweet birthday though. I mean, I'm the same age as Sue was when we lost her. A sobering thought, honestly.

Hubby let me sleep in today and took care of Matthias until about 11am, and I finally had a day where I woke up full of energy as opposed to feeling like hell warmed over.

We went out to Rødovre Center (a shopping center) to window shop and get some groceries. Ended up at the butcher's to grab some beef to make philly cheesesteaks with (although it wasn't shaved beef I made it work), some good meltable gouda cheese and peppers and onions.

Hubby got a phone call from his mother; she's been sick for a day or two - and her DVD player died. So we went to El Giganten (electronics/appliance store) and picked up a new DVD player as well as a digital cable box. All of the cable in Denmark is switching over to a digital signal within the next year, so we might as well get that done for her now.

I spoke to Vanessa for a bit today; she's been sick for the past week. Apparently the night she came home from the FBLA conference in MN. Antibiotics haven't done much; so her doctor changed them and added in a steroid - apparently her mouth has swollen and the glands under her tongue as well. If she's not better by Monday she'll have bloodwork done to test for mono.

Yay, mono.

Other than that, it's been a quiet day, really. Matthias is starting to change his sleeping habits a bit, taking fewer naps during the day and sleeping a bit longer during the night.

Not going to hear me complain about that, at all.

Random Pictures Day...

We had fun just taking some pictures of the baby today after his bath; enjoy!

He's eating well, nearly an entire jar of 6 month baby food at a sitting, sometimes with some fruit for dessert and a bottle later.

He's much more patient than Vanessa was when it comes to being fed, he doesn't lunge after the spoon like she did, nor does he scream when it's not shoveled into his mouth as fast as he'd like it to be.

All in all, he's very much a laid back baby.






See?

Nothing's bothering him here... other than the flash.

It's damned hard to get a picture of him with his eyes fully open with our camera - he tends to blink rapidly with the flash and yeah, it looks like he's stoned.




Of course, this means that I can have fun captioning the pictures where he looks funny in.




Kind of like this!

A Day in Copenhagen...

So for the better part of the week we've been planning on taking a trip into the city. Of course, we've been having so much fun with the baby we've lost track of time and yeah, we finally made it into Copenhagen today.

So we bundled Matthias up in the car, with extra warm layers on (it's getting cold and very windy here now and the wind can cut right through you), as well as a hat.

He hates hats.

But once he got a good earful of wind, he stopped complaining about having it on, unless it managed to fall down over his eyes and then he would shake his head back and forth as if to say, "WTF, who turned out the lights??"

We went shopping in at the American store - which has to be the worst excuse for an 'American' store I've ever seen. I was hoping to get some Karo Syrup or some hot sauce and they had Ritz crackers and some frozen foods that were probably as old as I am, and for some unknown reason they're selling clothes in there - like a prom gown too. WTF?

I did pick up a can of cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving there, as well as an Angel Food Cake Mix from Betty Crocker.

I went next door to the 'English' shop and got frosting and other needed items.

Halloween Fun!

Well, almost.

Matthias had his second series of vaccinations yesterday and handled the shots themselves beautifully - no crying or screaming just a look at the doctor as if to say, "What the hell was that for???".

He ran a fever that night and most of today he was pretty much a lapbaby, which was fine by Hubby and me, since we felt so sorry for him.

This was him on the 30th, after his first experience with baby pasta and meat sauce.

Yes, that's some sauce on his eyebrow there - but he definitely enjoyed the meal. It came out as orange as it went in, let me tell you.


For Halloween itself, Hubby indulged my creative side with getting me a pumpkin and a small watermelon, as well as a bunch of apples to have fun with.


You might ask, "What the hell are you going to do with that watermelon?"

Well, some friends of mine on a chatboard had some suggestions for it, and I thought they were brilliant (if a little time intensive).

Peel the rind off with a veggie peeler until the pink is JUST barely visible under the white portion of the rind.



Then, go to town with swirls and whatnot to give it a little brain action going on.

Cut the bottom so it lays flat and etch a few more whorls in and you're good to go!


I took the added fun of smearing oil and goop on top of it so when the kids touched it it'd be cold, clammy and absolutely disgusting.

The joys of being me, I tell you...



Here's the final doorstep results:

Yes, my pumpkin is puking. The brains were just too gross for it.

We had just a couple of kids come by this year, it was cold and rainy and not the best weather for trick-or-treating, given that it's not a 'real' holiday here in Denmark.

I made 15 caramel covered apples to hand out, and whatever is left over I'm dumping on Hubby's mother tomorrow for dessert. I'm not big on caramel apples, really.


Just a daytime shot of the pumpkin :D