Happy Thanksgiving 2011

Pen's hand on the left, Vi's hand on the right.

Making leaves for the thankful tree.

Hanging leaves in the thankful tree.

Girls in their thanksgiving dresses.

Cutest little one year olds.

Charles showing Noah Michael Jackson videos on the left, Tom beneath a pile of girls in back, and Vi on the right.

Tom and the girls.

 We had a very nice Thanksgiving at Tom's house this year. I was glad to not have to cook a bunch, but I did make a few things, including two pies from my new Vegan Pie in the Sky book sent to me from Maisie and Gailsie.  We walked over to Tom's house bringing two strollers, one for the kids and one for the food. Tom's roommates Ashley, Nathan, and their children were there and also Tom's girlfriend, Gabe. Penelope and Violet had a house full of kids to play with, Charles had a buddy in Noah, who watched endless videos on youtube with him, and everyone was so sweet for making tons of vegan food for us. Everything was delicious.

Penelope wanted to make a thankful tree, but we had to figure out a way to make it transportable this year. We ended up taking a branch from Tom's apple tree that fell down in the hurricaine a few months ago, we put it in a glass jar and secured it with glass marbles we already had. Then we used a rubber leaf stamp on fall colored paper and cut the leaves out, punched holes in them and threaded red yarn through them. People then wrote what they were thankful for and hung their leaves on the tree. We just brought it along to Tom's house like a bouquet of flowers. Penelope's first leaf said she was thankful for books, the next said Vi, Charles wrote coffee on his. I tend to agree with them both, good coffee and good books are essential. Lots of leaves said friends, family, Noah wrote all the good food that people made, someone wrote socks.

I was thankful for the wonderful dinner at Tom's house, a day spent with the people I love, but most of all I am thankful that herbal medicine works and that when Violet developed an ear infection, complete with a fever the afternoon before Thanksgiving just after the pediatrician had left for the day, I began dosing her up with herbs and by the next day she was fine and we had avoided a trip to the emergency room. That is truly a thing to be grateful for.