Plenty

I should have spent the day before Thanksgiving making FoodFoodFood, but instead I spent the whole day turning a battlefield (i.e. the upstairs) into a living space.  That night, I enjoyed not having to use a hatchet to clear a walkway into my bedroom, but the cost of that small luxury was having to cram all the baking (except the pumpkin cake roll) into a flurried Thanksgiving morning.






Turkey, gravy, stuffing, rolls, pies, candied squash, mashed potatoes, green beans, punch, cranberry salad, quick breads...

It's a good thing I have a houseful of Helper Elves, huh?  (The girls kept audibly sighing for Dobby or Kreacher, but, really, I think they're just fine on their own.)

 Annika made dough and then turned them into pumpkin rolls with a few, well-placed snips.





Ezekiel stole as much dough as he could manage.  (Yes, that's a raw turkey right in the middle of it all.  Salmonella, ho!)






Susannah made Cranberry Waldorf Salad.






Pip and Luci helped me turn the leftover pie crust into cinnamon sugar strips for a snack (okay, we were so busy this was actually all we ate for breakfast-- with milk to balance all our nutrients).












Annie finished off the pumpkin rolls with melted butter

and with pecan stems sent all the way from Texas.  (Those pecans were HUGE and delicious, Molly!)







Millie did a million undocumented things and made place cards, a necessary task...






because our guests were arriving!  Home, food, folks, everything we need in abundance and so much more.  I played Dylan's album New Morning all morning, to Millie's dismay, but his song "Father of Night" is one I always like to listen to on Thanksgiving.

Here you go.

Father of night, Father of day,
Father, who taketh the darkness away,
Father, who teacheth the birds to fly,
Builder of rainbows up in the sky,
Father of loneliness and pain,
Father of love and Father of rain.

Father of day, Father of night,
Father of black, Father of white,
Father, who built the mountains so high,
Who shapeth the cloud there up in the sky,
Father of time and Father of dreams,
Father who turneth the rivers and streams.

Father of grain, Father of wheat,
Father of cold and Father of heat,
Father of air and Father of trees,
Who dwells in our hearts and our memories,
Father of minutes, Father of days,
Father of whom we most solemnly praise.






(Luke:  to distract from your surprised face above, I give this goofy show-off.)







Speaking of goofy, in the next room over...





I may have ulterior motives for wanting Luke and Jae-Ryong at our gatherings.  This time, they brought savory Korean dumplings and the King's Dessert.  It's a most unusual and delicious candy made of thousands of honey strands wrapped around a sweet sesame filling.  Jae-Ryong showed us a video of a Korean man making some (fyi: he drops an "Omg" toward the end, but it's a cool video).











Three cheers for these two!






(Luke:  to make up for your goofy expression above, here's a picture Luci took of you looking cool in the corner chair.)






The following pictures were also taken by one of the girls.  I was reminded of how much I hate the flash of cameras as they walked around blinding all of us. (Plus, the flash really highlights all the fingerprints on our windows.)

The downside of no flash is a blurry snapshot, and here's one of the lovely Jae-Ryong giving the girls a violin lesson.






The End.

Food for Belly-building

I took a few lackluster pictures of food on the table for buildabelly, and I thought you'd particularly enjoy these first two, Heidi.  :)

I added butter, minced garlic, and s+p to the mix, but the bulk of the glory for this glorious dish goes straight to you.






And, yes!  I did add all the sugar!!!






Lastly, in honor of my sis-in-law Wendy, sorely missed, I made a pumpkin spice roll for the first time.






It will assuredly not be my last.

Reward for Capture

With five older sisters, both boys choose bold accessories for their pistols.





He may look harmless,

but this is one outlaw to avoid.

Bird of No Feather

For a boy who dresses like this to wave his Papa off to work, even in brisk weather,

you can bet I'll grant a request to take a quick snapshot of him and Pip after church.

He's a snappy fellow, either way.

Leftovers (credit to a little Owen with a camera)

I like this picture because it more accurately shows the state of disarray our house cycles through than my snapshots usually do.  Plus, those are some happy children, huh?





And there's this boy, who steals both my vest and my dumbphone any chance he gets.

All Locked Up

Sorry for the abrupt exit last week.  Someone I don't know was viewing and possibly downloading old snapshots, and it was clear he/she is someone I would not want near my children.  I must protect not only my children's real, physical selves, but also images of the same found in strange internet offshoots (i.e. blogs).   In the eleven years (what?! how?) since I first slapped up the sides of this ramshackle space, this is only the second time someone has misused what's here. I've nearly deleted this blog many times over the years, but for reasons apart from this, so the odds are pretty good that shotsnaps will stick around until the internet explodes ('cause it's going to explode, you know).

Those of you who contacted John, me, or Millie to unravel the mystery hereby win a Blue Ribbon of Faithfulness for proving yourselves cream-of-the-crop readers.  Those of you who didn't even notice?  Well....here's a White Consolation Ribbon because I like you, anyway.

Also, for those of you who don't have John's or my contact info-- either as friends of friends or as Good Folks who don't know us in real life, having stumbled across this blog on weary electronic travels-- you're of course welcome here.  If the need ever arises for me to more permanently make shotsnaps private, I'll try to give a heads-up before I barricade the doors so that I can add your email addresses to the access list. For reference, here's my secondary-spam-email account that I check about once a week: fridgefame at gmail dot com. If you want your email added to the safe list now, just send a quick email.

I don't have time for a real post at the present.  Soon-ish, I hope.
A blessed Advent season to all!

p.s. Sorry for the bother, but some feed subscriptions may not pick up new posts now, since the blog was taken off public lists for a bit.  Renewing the feed should do the trick.

Today

People everywhere carry dates heavy inside them, private numerals dense with meaning and worn smooth by attention.  We all walk around with a string of them waiting for their yearly turn. Some days are jubilant in announcing their arrival, but others quiet the tongue.

Oh, Dad, we miss you.
And we wait, still, with hope.

Because This Is Shotsnaps

Here are a bunch of snapshots.  They're worth a thousand words, anyway.