Thanksgiving - Blessings Counted

This Thanksgiving my family was able to get together at my house. We were missing my brother Chad as his family welcomed a new little girl - Caitlyn to their (our) family. My grandma and mom came, as did Connie and Joe, my sis and brother. We had many things to be thankful for as we got ready for dinner, enjoying the fun of getting ready, snacking as we cooked, and eating the wonderful meal that we had worked so hard for. We were also able to spend some fun times together the rest of the weekend and we enjoyed letting the cousins renew friendships and play together. I was reminded of all the things that I am thankful for - the main blessing in my life is my family. Love you guys. Here are some pics of the great meal, and fun times we had this weekend. The eggs are our first eggs from our chickens - we are starting to see results from the months of feeding and caring for "our girls." We are now getting 7-8 eggs a day. The white egg is from the store. We took an evening to make gingerbread (cracker) houses and had a great time. We also gave my mom a makeover (Carene and Connie style) and colored/highlighted her hair and we also waxed her eyebrows for the first time. In your own words Mom, "That's the price of beauty kid." Below is a new recipe I found and fixed to use up some of the leftover turkey. They were to die for, and kind of fancy looking for entertaining. Hope you enjoy. My kids even ate this, just not in a lettuce leaf.

P.S. I have to cram all this in, as I seem to have a hard time lately finding time to blog. Hope all had a great holiday.

New Recipe: I adjusted the amounts as I had a big group to feed.

Lettuce Wraps

1 tsp oil
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast (I used cut up turkey from dinner)

1/4 cup grated carrot
1/4 cup slivered onion

1 Tbsp. slivered green pepper

1 Tbsp. slivered orange pepper
1/4 cup water

1 pkg Ramen Chicken flavor

1/4 cup unsalted peanuts

1/2 reserved seasoning packet

1 Tbsp. hoisin sauce

1 tsp. honey

1/8 tsp pepper

1/16 tsp chili pepper

1/16 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp hot pepper sauce

8 leaf lettuce leaves

Heat cooking oil and saute chicken and onion together until chicken is no longer pink inside. Add carrot and peppers. Stir fry until veggies tender-crisp. Add water and noodles. Simmer for about 2 minutes until noodles are softened. Add seasonings, and stir until heated through. Transfer to a serving bowl. Serve on platter surrounded by lettuce leaves. Serve 1/8 of chicken mixture in lettuce leaf. Roll up and eat. So yummy!