The Day We Gave Thanks

Whew! What a weekend, huh? I thought it would be so slow and blah since we didn't have company, but somehow we managed to fill up all of our time and find ourselves wondering how it's possibly over already! We packed a lot in over Thanksgiving weekend: events included things such as feasting on our big meal, Black Friday shopping (not at 5 am, though, more like 8 am!), picking out and cutting down our Christmas tree, family pictures, decorating for Christmas, and Sammy taking his first steps! Many of these will be blogged about at a later date...for now I'm just going to document our Thanksgiving Feast!

Since we were flying solo for the meal, I did indeed cook it all by myself (with Garrett's help, of course). So I can now say I've done the entire meal all by myself (don't know if I've really been dying to say that or not, but I guess I will now!). Our meal included turkey, stuffing (in the bird & out of the bird), green bean casserole, homemade cranberry sauce (this was all Garrett's doing, as I mentioned before), rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, and pies (pecan & pumpkin). And I've gotta say I was pretty proud of myself, it was YUMMY! I was especially proud of the rolls--I used Garrett's mom's recipe because it is simply just the best and I felt like they turned out pretty good. Nothing like the real thing, but pretty good. I have failed on this recipe on more than one occasion, so I was worried they wouldn't be good (you just can't beat the real thing, no matter how hard I try), but they tasted pretty yummy. I did let them rise for too long, so they were huge--more like mini loaves of bread, but that made them all the more perfect for sandwiches the next day! And they were a perfect companion to the turkey noodle soup we made last night with leftover turkey.
When we were finished eating, I was worried by the amount of leftovers we had because I thought for sure we'd end up throwing most of them away because there were SO many, of course! But I have been proud of us for eating on them the last couple of days. We have made it through almost all of them. We had to get a little creative on how to use them, but Thanksgiving leftovers are the best kind of leftovers, aren't they?!
Here is my master turkey carver at work! Glad he's there to do it because carving the turkey is definitely not my "thing".
Tyler especially loved the yams and the cranberries (much to my surprise-he totally LOVED them) and was actually pretty good to take at least a bite of everything.
Sam spent most of his time throwing his food on the floor thinking it was pretty dang funny, but if he did get any in his mouth, he was a pretty big fan of yams and mashed potatoes. No turkey for him...it was all on the floor!
I had to laugh at the table after we were done because it hardly looked any different than it did before we began. It looks like we hardly touched anything because we had so much food!

When we were eating, I made sure we talked about our blessings and how thankful we are. So I had everyone list at least 5 things they were thankful for. I am trying to remember them all, but I wanted to write down what we each said. Because we truly do have SO many blessings!

TYLER:
1. Thomas
2. Swimming pools
3. Movies
4. Potatoes
5. The Wii
6. Mom, Sammy, and Dad
And when I tucked him into bed that night, he whispered to me "Mom, I am thankful for loves." How sweet is that?

ME:
1. Daddy and how hard he works for our family
2. Being able to be Tyler and Sam's mommy
3. Lower gas prices--seriously makes me so happy!
4. The gospel
5. My camera

GARRETT:
1. Tyler
2. Sammy
3. Mommy
4. My pickup with the cool flashlight installed and the new mufflers
5. My job

And I'm sure if Sam could have piped in, he would have said this:
1. My binky
2. My fuzzy blue blanket
3. Sippy cups
4. Antibiotics
5. My mom (of course!) :)

So after dinner, we all snuck in a nap. What would Thanksgiving be without a nap?! Afterwards, Tyler and I broke the wishbone. (does anyone else do this? we always did growing up)
And it looks like Tyler will be the one getting his wish. Poor me...
And then it was time to whip the cream and have some PIE!!
SO yummy! I crave that piece of pumpkin pie all year long. And all I really need is one piece and I'm good, but about a month before Thanksgiving, I start craving it bad. Definitely one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving!
And Sam just managed to get into the whipped cream. That was his favorite part, I'm quite sure. (don't mind the bed head!) I don't know what I'm going to do with this kid and his sweet tooth!
And that's a wrap of our Thanksgiving Day. It was so nice to spend it together as a family and reflect on our blessings. I know I have been given more blessings than I could possibly deserve. I love my life and am so grateful for all that I have! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

And now I have to wrap my head around the fact that Tyler's birthday is in seven days and Christmas is in twenty five...so much to do! How is it possibly already December?? Ahhh!