Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my dear family and friends (who are probably the only ones who read this blog). This year was the Whittaker year for Thanksgiving, so we bundled our boys up in the car and drove north. Beniah went napless today and did amazingly well. There were a couple of times that tears were about to erupt, but were quickly subdued after we told him to "control his crankies". Now before you give us rounds of applause for our magnificent parenting, you should know that his cousins distracted him by calling for him to play with them. Playing with a big 5 year old boy is so much better then crying over a car that was being played with by his younger, girl cousin.

Beniah loves to play pianos. I think music lessons are in store for us.

The Ipad was the hit of the night.

I was so proud of how well Beniah climbed the ladder to get onto the loft, but was also a little bit sad on how quickly he is growing up.

Elijah was his sweet self and was doted on and cooed over well enough to make this Mama's heart swell a little. I can't help but be happy when people tell me that my children are beautiful.



As with every Thanksgiving, there is a lot of food! This year, I was designated to bring the sweet potatoes for thirty people. After scouring my favorite food website, I found a recipe that was divine! Unfortunately, when I had the website switch the number of servings from 12 to 30, it failed to mention that one serving was for a lumberjack who had just worked a 14 hour shift and had only eaten top ramen for the past 3 days. I ended up with two 9x13 pans and four 8x8 pans worth of sweet potatoes. Thankfully, everybody enjoyed it and is (at least I am ) excited for the leftovers.



Cinnamon Apple Sweet Potato

Ingredients

• 3 sweet potatoes
• 3 yams
  
• 6 large apples - peeled, cored and sliced
• 1 bag cranberries (around 1 to 1 1/2 cups)
  
• 1 cup white sugar *Note: I am going to try cutting down the sugar by a 1/4 cup next time to see if it comes out a little less sweet.
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Peel and cut sweet potatoes, yams, and apples into chunks. Mix the sweet potatoes, yams, cranberries, and apples into a 9x13-inch baking dish.
3. Meanwhile, stir together the sugar, cornstarch, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a saucepan. Stir in the water and butter and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook and stir until thickened and no longer cloudy, 5 to 10 minutes. It will turn into what I imagine a gelatinous blob looks like before it attacks you, but don't worry it won't. Pour over the sweet potatoes.
4. Bake in the preheated oven until the apples are very tender and the sweet potatoes are golden on top, about 1 hour.

My next holidayish baking will be individual pecan pies. I had a piece of pecan pie for dessert and am now all about pecan pie.