Six years ago today, I awoke in my room in The Daisy House, and I was sad. It was the first Thanksgiving in my 25 years that I was not waking up in the same house as my family. I called Mom. Crying. "Mom... I miss all of you."

"Oh, Kristi..." She assured me. "We will see you tomorrow night. Besides, you'll have fun with Andrew's family." Perhaps she was right, perhaps she wasn't, But that didn't really matter to me. I wasn't just sad because I missed them. I was sad because it had just hit me that things were actually shifting in my life. And I was going to have to figure out a new "normal".

That morning marked the beginning of the mad juggling of families that now encompasses the majority of our holidays. I suppose most every young family goes through this (at least if they are blessed enough, as we are, to be on good terms with both sides of the family). And it seems to get a little tougher each year... As a new sibling gets married... Or another kid comes along.

I wonder at what point people stop trying to do everything with each family and just start developing their own family traditions? I assume this must happen at some point. I mean how else would kids learn about the tradition of waking up in your own house on Christmas morn and anxiously running down to the tree to see what surprises they would find?

Then again, I still don't think I could bear not seeing our families during the holidays. Sometimes it's a week before or a week after the actual day, but we still get together and break bread and do our best to have fun. It's all part and partial of giving thanks and sharing the love I guess.

At least this morning I didn't wake up in tears. Nope, 6 years after that first weepy Thanksgiving, I woke up, kissed the baby next to me, hollered (hushedly) at the other two to quiet it down, and began a baking frenzy to get us through the next 4 days of eating. No tears this year. Just a grateful smile on my face to have so many loved ones to visit and hug and be merry with.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Delectable Vegetarian Enchiladas

The 9th annual Great Country Getaway took place this past weekend, and it was a blast! But that is not what this post is about. This post is about how we returned home from folks' place with NOTHING in our kitchen (well besides a few staples.) And since I wasn't in the mood to go grocery shopping on Monday, I had to be creative for supper. And this is what I came up with:

Delectable Vegetarian Enciladas (DVE's for short)

Ingredients: (I didn't really measure so these are guesses)
1 small onion, diced
Tbsp olive oil
1 pkg frozen spinach
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can black beans
Some Cumin
Some Garlic Salt
Flour Tortillas
1-2 cans red enchilada sauce (but green would be tasty too)
Some shredded mexican style cheese

First thing I did was put the frozen block of spinach in a small amount of boiling water and stir it around until it was warmish. Then I put that in a colander in my sink to dry it out a bit. Next I put some olive oil in the same pan and sautéed the onions until just turning brown. I dumped the spinach back in, added the can of diced tomatoes and can of black beans... seasoned with cumin and garlic salt... and stirred it all around until warm.

Next I coated a 9x9 baking dish with non-stick spray. I placed one flour tortilla in, put some filling in it, put a tablespoon of enchilada sauce... and then rolled it and laid it seam side down against the edge of the dish. I continued doing this until the dish was full of enchiladas. (Note: I had quite a bit of filling leftover that I used for later in the week, but if you did this in a 9x12, you'd probably use the filling up just right) I then dumped the rest of the enchilada sauce on top of the enchiladas and spread it around. Sprinkled some cheese over the top and covered with foil.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 15-20 minutes until bubbling and delicious-looking.

These things were unbelievalby tasty for a random invention recipe and I highly recommend them to you. In the words of my friend Lisa, "YUM-MO!!"