crisis averted

Trying to celebrate thanksgiving in a foreign country, and trying to manage families with very young children was sure to bring some thanksgiving drama! Here is my list of thanksgiving crises narrowly averted this year:

-macaroni salvaged at the last minute: I have decided that homemade mac and cheese is my new thanksgiving tradition - creamy, yummy, and SO scrumptious! But as I was making it, I tripled the recipe for the pasta, cheese, milk and butter, but QUADRUPLED it for salt and pepper! When it was finished, I tasted it and was nearly blown off my feet by the level of saltiness. In the end, I just ended up making a 4th batch of it without salt and pepper to add to the other three. Needless to say, we had LOTS of mac&cheese!

-waiting on the stuffing: So, after planning the entire thanksgiving meal with exact precision, we opened the oven at 12:00 noon to pull out the stuffing (as everything else is ready and piping hot!) and we discovered that I had accidentally turned off the oven right as rachel was putting the stuffing in an hour ago! Yikes! We just decided to do our best to keep everything hot and let the stuffing cook. In the end, that one turned out ok, too.

-getting all the haizi's happy at the same time: this crisis was not exactly avoided, just managed. (By the way, haizi's is the way you say "children" where we live and we use it so casually, we have added it to our english vocabulary!) With two infants and two toddlers, there was bound to be chaos. We were able to manage them not ALL crying or fussing at the same time; they decided instead to take turns! So it added to the noise level, but we were so thankful this year to have such a full house of precious children!

-enough food: truly, as I planned the meal, I thought there would not be enough food. But, of course, it turned out to be a meal for an army and for days and days of leftovers. But isn't that what thanksgiving was all about?? Highlights of my t-giving meal this year were: the incredibly moist turkey (I've converted, officially), mac&cheese, apple cake, and the chocolate chip cheesecake ball which tempts you to mindlessly eat while you play cards. YumYum!


I decided to give mantha her first rice cereal today instead of thanksgiving - there was just a bit much chaos yesterday, but today she was surprisingly open to the new substances. Pictures and details to come later!

Let the shopping begin...