Or… NOT.

Now that I got some sleep–plus a two hour nap this afternoon (You want to know what I’m thankful for this year? Bouncy seats. They keep infants asleep for niiiice long periods of time.)–I can attempt to make some sense out of the mish-mashed post I started last night.

Here’s where my mind is at right about now:

Thanksgiving equals thankful hearts, right? And thankful hearts equal joy, right? Which, around here, joy means celebration, which, of course, equals food. But now food… that equals COOKING.

Now I don’t know about you, but between a newborn, his crazy older brother, a surgery and such… cooking could be an interesting thing around here these days.

The solution? VONS, peeps.

They have a wonderful service deli, in case you were wondering. I know. Because I’ve had oodles of family who have worked in them. It’s family tradition. And the place I’ve decided to head to when I’m in cooking trouble.

Okay, the truth is that it was John’s mom’s idea. Making the whole schebang just wasn’t realistic in the scheme of things, so we now have quite the pre-cooked dinner sitting in our fridge waiting for the big moment tomorrow afternoon.

It couldn’t get much easier.

But, dearly beloved, DO NOT FEAR.

Here is what the far corner of my kitchen looked like last night:

See all that food? The stuff that doesn’t fit into the pantry or the baking cupboard?

This is just the beginning.

We only have plans for a dessert or a hundred. Pumpkin pie with ice cream or whip cream–your choice, pecan pie, pumpkin bars, fudge, cookies, more fudge that isn’t as yummy but needs to be eaten, and reeses pieces bars. We ARE making a traditional corn casserole to go with our dinner along with our traditional ham roll-ups.

There are going to be five whole adults here tomorrow.

Enough? We’ll see.

And that’s the extent of our Thanksgiving cooking.

But with such things as two children who both have runny noses (exclusively breastfed Merritt has a runny nose at three weeks… what’s up with that???) and are not too happy about it, two major spit-up/throw up incidents in public in one day (only one of which was bad enough to warrant having John go into the nearest store on his own and grab me the nearest, cheapest cutest shirt. Fun times, peeps), blow-out diapers from both kids (thankfully usually at home), middle of the night trips to the airport to pick up family members and such… this is just the perfect level of involvement in the Thanksgiving Day Feast cooking for us.

Sweets. They are obviously what we’re thankful for right now.

Oh, and though the night is nearly gone… Happy Birthday to a certain dark haired brother of mine, who is now officially old at 17. I keep telling him that, because it makes me feel less old if we are old together. Misery loves company and all that.

And moms, just in case you’re wondering, he is six feet tall, the handsomest kid I know, loves the Lord, serves in church, loves kids, plays the fiddle, is responsible (more often than not, at least–he is only one day into 17, of course. Ahem) and has a size 14 shoe and can change diapers.

I’m joking, I’m joking. I don’t want to be killed here…

But Happy Birthday, Zach. You know I love ya.

See you all tomorrow. With a picture of what I’m most recently thankful for this year. Not that you could guess or anything.