We decided to put the tree up earlier than we usually do this year. So today that's what we did. Chris did most of the work and I just made sure the cat didn't get into anything. Ornaments that make noises are interesting, that's for sure.

Adam and Comfort stopped by in the evening, taking a break from their home improvements, to celebrate Comfort's birthday (which was yesterday) and eat some pie.

Hooray for pie and people!

Like last year, this year we are doing a second Thanksgiving. It's especially important because yesterday's turkey day was non-traditional, which means I didn't get any cranberries!
Today is also Comfort's birthday, so I started in on an apple pie for her early in the morning.
I actually had some leftover pie crust, so I made a mini-apple pie for me and two mini-pecan pies for Chris. I'd actually bought some mini-pie pans awhile back and this is the first opportunity I've had to use them. They worked out pretty well.

I ended up taking Chris's grandmother's pecan pie recipe and used a quarter of the ingredients, which was enough for two little pies. Her recipe isn't that different from most other pecan pie recipes (just more sugar), so I think using a quarter of the ingredients for any pecan pie recipe would work.
I prepared most of the side dishes in the morning after the pies and then put them in the fridge to be reheated. Since there are just the two of us, we picked up a 3lb turkey breast and just cooked it in the slow cooker. Everything came out pretty good, including the cranberries (not pictured).

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's leftovers!

We woke this morning to additional snow. So before we left for the east side of the state Chris shoveled about an inch and a half off of all the sidewalks and driveway.
We had a late lunch at my parents house. This year was non-traditional. We had pasta instead of turkey. But there was pumpkin pie later, so that makes up for it.
In the evening we headed over to Chris's mom's house for some dessert and to hang out. Scot really enjoyed a little handheld gaming device Chris brought and played some cool retro games.
And Chris's mom enjoyed seeing new photos on his phone.
We also tested to see how well skype would work if she got a tablet so she could see her grandson. So here she is skyping for the first time. She's never used a computer, so I think the test went well enough. She may get internet and a tablet so we can do video calling.

Squeezed in some more Dragon Age II and collected a few trophies along the way. I'm about 2/3 of the way through the main story now. This feels like a much shorter game than Dragon Age Origins.

Since Adam and Comfort are signing on their new house this afternoon, I decided to get some baking out of the way so we can go help move and what not.

A few dozen sugar cookies, a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie were all set after a few hours of baking. That felt so much more productive than just responding to emails all morning, which is what my work day would have looked like.
In the afternoon we went over to their new house (which is less than a mile from us) and helped unload their truck. Well, I mostly just stood around and moved light things while Chris, Comfort's dad, and their friend's Will and Krista unloaded the truck. Comfort and Adam were signing on their house so everyone managed to get most things moved out of the truck before they were done. Which was good, since it gets dark early and had started to snow.

Later in the evening we went with them to home depot so they could pick up a few things, including paint swatches.

It's another vacation day (Friday was my first) and so I spent a big chunk of it just enjoying lazying around and playing video games. I played a lot of Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and Dragon Age II.

If I'm not sitting at a desk typing all day, I can squeeze in gaming and it doesn't bother my wrists too much. So I always enjoy having time off of work just so I can have some nice chunks of time with a video game and not worry about wrist pain the next day.

Plus Chris made dinner (like usual). Huzzah!

Today is a much quieter day. I played a lot of Dragon Age II, helped Chris make a shelf out of sisal rope on one of the stools we use as a table...
..and in general hung out. Plus Leki was pretty happy to have someone to cuddle with on the couch.

Today is the first full day of the Grand Rapids Comic Convention. So we headed out pretty early to check things out before it got too busy. Last year (their first year) by 3pm they were turning people away and the building was packed. They've moved to the Delta Plex Arena this year, which is larger than a school gym.

Comfort and Adam were there, of course, and all set and ready to go.
Corinne was there as well, and had a pretty nice booth setup. She's a friend of Comfort and Adam's and has been going to several conventions with them. It was cool to see her there. 

We met up with Dan and we walked around for several hours checking everything out. 

The convention filled up pretty fast. We left by 1pm and it was already getting hot, smelly (there isn't good air ventilation in a few spaces) and packed. I noticed that by 2pm they'd stop selling their tickets because they'd reached capacity. But that's good news for them. It definitely means that there is a demand for this type of show in the area, which is fantastic news for Comfort and Adam since they're moving back to town next week. 

Pokemon was a little after my time and I never had much of an interest in the games or the tv show. But I played through all of the last game (Pokemon X) and some of Soul Silver several years ago, so I picked up Alpha Sapphire this morning. The games still

Since the Grand Rapids Comic Convention is this weekend I wanted to get everything set up and ready to streetpass with other players.

I've been working my way through Dragon Age II the last several evenings. All the snow hasn't really motivated me to do much aside from stay indoors where it's warm.

The game is...different. I'm a little bored with all the quests in Kirkwall, which is the town that servers as the main hub in the game.

And another snowy day before turkey day. I'm ready for it to melt now.

..and snowing...

Snow. Ugh.


We are under a winter weather advisory (and have been since last night) so we woke up to some fresh snow. We're supposed to get between one and four inches of snow. 
So since we probably aren't going to go anywhere, or not for very long, I decided to do a little baking this morning. I made some baked oatmeal to divide and take to work for breakfast this week. I'm still trying to decide if I should bake anything else.

I played a bunch of the extra content in Dragon Age Awakening this morning. A lot. And as much as I'd like to play video games all day, I do have to get off my butt and walk around and do stuff. It's way too easy to stay locked indoors with snow outside, but it's only going to get worse so...
We went out shopping to a few different places. We ordered some hardware to replace the handles on the furniture we're going to use in the baby room. Since it's my old furniture from when I was a kid, the handles look a little older so we thought it would be nice to update them. No one actually had enough in stock for us to change everything on a dresser, chest of drawers, and a nightstand so we had to order the handles online.

We also picked up a changing pad while we were out. For some reason it comes with a seat belt. Kids rolling off of stuff is a thing, I guess? I don't know. Since we're not buying a changing table and using the existing table we have in the room, we thought a pad would work fine.

I also picked up Dragon Age II while we were out. That way if I finish up what I'm playing now, I can move right into the next game. All for the low price of $15. I guess that's what happens when you wait three years to buy a game. This is also why I'm very against going all digital. I still want all of my games on a disc. That way I'm not dependent on a server being up, my internet connection, and I don't have to pay an arm and a leg for a three year old video game because you can't buy used copies of digital files.

Dragon Age: Inquisition, the third in the series, comes out Tuesday. And I have so much back content to play before I should really start the third game. Sigh.

I've sat on Dragon Age: Origins, the first in the series, for a long time. Ever since a character I was romancing rejected me I figured the amusing witty conversations would stop and I kind of lost interest. Which is weird, because I love fantasy settings in pretty much every media. I was much more heavily compelled to complete all three Mass Effect games (made by the same company, but in space!) than finish up Origins and I hated my character's romance choice in the ME games.

Well, I finally completed the first game last night. It probably would have been a much more satisfying ending if I'd not let three-ish years lapse between plays and kind of forgot what was going on. But it is still a really good game in it's own right.

So I moved onto some extra content for the first game tonight, which is pretty amusing.

Snow that is actually sticking. It's too early for this.

My boss made cupcakes for a co-worker's birthday. Delicious sweets in the morning!

Rain! Which is better than snow.

Ideally I'd like to do cloth diapers when the baby is born. So a few Bumgenius pocket ones I ordered arrived today. I figure I'll try a few different kinds and see what I like.

They're one size, so you use the snaps to make it smaller or larger depending on the baby's size.

Now to invest in a wet bag, which is what you store the dirty cloth diapers in and then dump them all (including the bag) into the washer when it's time to do laundry.

These diapers with snaps and velcro are so not my grandmother's diapers with pins. Although I do oddly see those in every baby section for some reason and the more popular cloth types (pocket diapers, liners, all-in-one) are actually really hard to find in the store.

That was...

That was a movie that was a little all over the place and really kind of silly in the last 3rd.

Should have gone to see Birdman, damn it.




 
The curtains we bought for in the closet in the baby room are a little long. For those that don't know, we are using these curtains instead of the traditional closet doors. We have closet doors in the basement from the previous owners, but when they put in new carpet they didn't cut a place for the door track to lay and, honestly, the curtain seems to work just fine.
We (Chris) decided to hem them so they would hang better. Chris did all the measuring, pinning and ironing. I just had to operate the sewing machine. 

Now they hang better! I wasn't really keen on doing the hemming. The curtains didn't really bother me, but now that it's done, it does look nicer. When it comes to aesthetics, Chris is usually right.

I ate a doughnut as big as my face (after just eating a bagel) this morning. Despite a stomach ache, I regret nothing.

Pebble watch (which is watch size) is for scale.

Dan came over today and he brought a pretty cool co-operative game: Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. I'm neutral on most board games but for whatever reason I do like card games. Plus this was Lord of the Rings themed - so awesome! I had a really good time playing it and I look forward to playing again.

My co-worker gave me this from his calendar today. Hilarious! I immediately pinned that to my wall at my desk.

 
Also, no cell phones! I'm not even sure why they'd say that...so you don't chit chat while voting? I assume a lot of people these days have their candidates picked out on their phone and pull it up to make sure they fill everything out.

Rainy. Bleh.

Halloween is over, but the Halloween content in Guild Wars 2 is up until Tuesday when the next game patch goes live. So I spent some time playing around in the seasonal content before it was gone.

Yay for naps!