Back in the Blogging Saddle Again

Thanksgiving is just past us, and I'm going to try this blogging thing again.

Thanksgiving is a great time to talk about food. After all, food is one of the three "F's" of Thanksgiving: food, football, and family. This year, I managed to get 2 of the 3 F's and am still lamenting the lack of football.

We spent Thanksgiving dinner with our cousins. There were many of what I call the traditional fixings as well as some unique ones. Turkey - yum. Cranberry sauce - two kinds and yum. Vegetables galore - mixed veggies, creamed onions, sweet potato yumminess, winter squash casserole. Stuffing - two kinds and more yum. Salad with homemade dressing - yum (and I'm not a salad fan!). For dessert, there were chocolates, cookies, 2 kinds of pumpkin pie, apple pie, cranberry-walnut bread, and pumpkin chocolate chip bread. Lots more yum.

This year's Thanksgiving included a kids' table! Much happiness from this addition. I feared that Caleb would not eat, but he just chose to eat mostly the raw veggies on the kid table instead of the food I brought him from the main spread. And by mostly raw veggies, I mean he chomped happily on bell peppers, carrots, and celery in rather obscenely large quantities. As Aaron tells me, you do not complain when your kid eats vegetables. He did munch a bit on his plate of traditional fixings, and he apparently likes the winter squash casserole I make. Ellie also noshed on a variety of the foods, but her favorite was the cranberry sauce - actually the canned stuff to be more precise. I was delighted to find an organic canned cranberry jelly this year since I refuse to buy the kind with high fructose corn syrup yet I need cranberry jelly for it to feel like Thanksgiving.

I've thought a bit about how my kids ate this weekend because holidays are often times when we all eat less healthfully than we might otherwise choose. My kids had more dessert options available, but I don't feel like they overindulged. Caleb asked for a second cookie at Thanksgiving dessert. When I saw he was talking about a 1-2 inch cookie, I agreed. He didn't ask for any more cookies. He ate a bit of pumpkin bread about an hour later. Besides the Thanksgiving desserts, I also made a sinfully delicious chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and chocolate glaze. We all enjoyed it immensely on Saturday, and my kids strangely have not been begging for it since.

I wonder how my kids manage to regulate themselves or not crave the sweet stuff like I do. Certainly they don't eat it as much as I do. I've been thinking that I would be much healthier (and weigh a lot less) if I ate like my kids do.