Turkey Day

November is almost over and December *cough cough Christmas!* is upon us! I LOVE Christmas! But, before I devote my blogging and picture taking energies towards one of the best 4 or 5 holidays of the year (Groundhog's Day, Halloween, 4th of July and birthday's - not necessarily my own - being the other holidays I thoroughly enjoy), I knew that I would not have done my blogging duty if I did not devote a post towards Turkey Day (a.k.a. Thanksgiving for my International friends who do not know of this American holiday. Actually, come to think of it, all of my International friends are in America so they know of the holiday... Oh well.)

In addition to Turkey Day, here are some of my favorite moments in the life of the Workman's (which really just means the life of Jessica) over the past few days/weeks/seconds... when did I blog last?

Dress-up

This term has taken on a new meaning for my daughter. She is finally reaching the stage of her life where she wants to dress in different clothing over her daily outfit so as to achieve an entirely new look. She has taken to subconsciously experimenting with my clothes and various household items in order to acquire her unique sense of fashion. I present you with...

The slip-beanie-dishwasher utensil basket look!

Yes. This picture you are looking at has not been altered in any way. Jessica is sporting one of my black slips in a classic Roman toga style over one shoulder. Although this picture does not show off her grey beanie to its full advantage (don't worry - there are pictures that do), it is perched rakishly upon her brow. And, finally, for lack of sunglasses (or sun for that matter), she has chosen to utilize the utensil rack off our dishwasher as her sunglasses...

She's checking the time on her imaginary watch. Funny how the toga slip doesn't come equipped with one of those. An oversight that will be corrected in the upgraded model...

Here is our little runway model staring at the camera with no shame. She truly is comfortable with her new duds! :)

You're Never to Young For Food Storage

Jessica has not been feeling well for the past few days due to teething. (She's almost done... almost.) In any case, this means she has been having a harder time going down for her naps. Usually she does VERY VERY well but again, lately... In any case she was eating corndogs for lunch the other day and fell asleep in Daddy's lap. Apparently, she figured she would save us the trouble of putting her food away while she napped since she knew she would be hungry when she woke up. Either that or she is trying to follow the Prophet's counsel and begin her food storage now...

She hates giving up her sippie cups when she falls asleep. It's kinda funny because it is like her security blanket or something. We have to slip it from her hand or suffer the massive amounts of crying.

You couldn't see it in the other picture very well, but here she is clutching her corndog to her like a lifeline. Soooo cute!!!

Even when her head fell forward and the corndog corned her in the eye, she didn't let go. She must have REALLY wanted that corndog!

Turkey Day Preparations

I have never cooked a turkey before in my life. I have eaten turkey. I have re-heated turkey. Heck, my parents would even say that I've been a turkey but, I've never cooked a turkey. I figured it couldn't be that hard, right? ... right? Anyways, Jer and I went to Walmart at midnight the night before Thanksgiving. We found a beautiful looking 11lb turkey and brought it home. It wasn't until we got home that we read the directions and realized that an 8-12lb turkey should defrost for 24 hours before cooking. Whoopsie. We had 12 hours to get that bird into the oven! Especially since we had company coming over for the feast... So, we left it out overnight rather than letting it defrost in the fridge. At 11am (one hour before D-day, uh D-hour?) we called Jer's mom who suggested that we put the turkey in hot water in the bathtub...

So, the turkey went for a swim...

We had 4 pies (2 pumpkin, 1 chocolate pudding, and 1 apple). We also had Rissy rolls (named after my sister-in-law who taught me how to make them), deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and a green bean bake. Everything from scratch...

Here's the turkey in the roasting pan getting ready to be put into the oven... Let me just say that pulling the neck and giblets out was pretty disgusting!



Cousins

My cousin Kenny came over for the festivities with his 2 adorable children, Logan and Natalie. (As an aside - I LOVE the name Natalie!) In any case, Natalie is about 1 month older than Jess. It was tons of fun having them there! They are cute, cute, cute!

Becky is teaching Logan, Jessica, and Natalie how to bowl...

Natalie and Jessica. Neither of them look excited to have their picture taken!

They are both going for the toys...

Kenny is helping Natalie with her socks? Shoes? Not really quite sure. Logan is busy with the crayons. He really liked coloring...

Jessica was into everything that Logan was doing. She loved following him around and trying to copy him. So adorable!

The 3 kids decided to serenade all of the adults with their favorite Thanksgiving Day song. I have no idea what that song was, but they certainly seemed to know what they wanted to play!

Natalie really liked Jessica's princess chair. She kept carrying it all over the house so Jessica wouldn't sit in it! :)

Jessica is getting down with Madagascar drum (we call it the Mada drum for short...)

Logan felt left out so he decided to try. He even added words.

Jessica and Logan sitting in front of the T.V. watching Bugs Life.

Uncle Andy (my dad's youngest brother) came over for Thanksgiving dinner. Natalie wasn't quite sure what to make of him. :)

This is for you Lisa! Kenny, Logan, and Natalie. Cute family!
Kenny is a great dad and it was a lot of fun seeing him with his kids.

Logan... he is super super funny! Not quite sure why his thumb is by his mouth... It looks like he's licking something off his thumb. Hopefully it's whip cream and not a booger...

Natalie and Jessica are hugging goodbye.

I caught the tail end of Natalie and Jessica giving each other a kiss goodbye. So cute!



Fullmer Family Sleepover

I invited all of the Fullmer cousins who were in Utah (for school or for Thanksgiving Break) to spend the night and play games the Friday after Thanksgiving. We had 10 of us there. It was a blast!!! In attendance: Myself, Jer, Derrall, Becky, Kenny, Spencer, Colton, Jordan, Tanner, Brooke. We laughed and goofed off and came up with a million inside jokes and just had a great time. These are cousins from my mom's side of the family and that is the side of the family that I grew up with. It felt like old times (almost - we're only missing about 50 people... literally) and it was sooo good to be with lots of family again! Here are some random pictures of us playing games:

The next day, Jessica was ecstatic to have people to play with. She found a new spot to hang out in the living room... in between the recliner part of the sectional couch:

Looking around at her new digs.

She's feeling quite pleased with herself.
Until...

She realized that she was stuck. Then it wasn't such a great place to hang out...

Colton sleeping in a recliner... I do not envy his neck muscles!

Tanner and his wife Brooke. Everyone was a little tired. Most cousins stayed up until 4am...

Becky apparently isn't tired!

Spencer is not sure if he is or not...

Colton woke up and... can't tell if his neck is stiff or not.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of 4 of the cousins sleeping on the floor. The only thing that would make this picture more complete is if they were sleeping under a fort. Of course then I couldn't have taken the picture because they would have been under the fort... One of the great ironies of photography...

In any case, it was a fun few days! The only thing I haven't mentioned yet is the Black Friday bonanza that Jer and I love to participate in! This was a crazier year than normal in that we went to Walmart at midnight and Jer ended up being pushed (not maliciously but still pushed) into a cardboard DVD stand and the stand, aided and abetted by Jer and then followed by Jer, went crashing all over the floor. Yikes! I'm just glad that Jer was okay. And, um, that he got the movies we wanted... :) Happy Thanksgiving (even if it is a few days late) and Merry Christmas! (Have I mentioned how excited I am for the Christmas holidays?!?!?! I LOVE CHRISTMAS!)