All Sorts of Thanksgivingness

I made this for Thanksgiving

and this

both for the first time ever, and they were wonderful. I am normally not a pie person, cookies, ice cream, and chocolate are my weaknesses. However, I have had three pieces of this apple pie so far, and I will probably have one more. It is so wonderful. The cheese ball was pretty much a total miracle. I have never made anything close to resembling a cheese ball and can't remember the last time I actually ate one. And I forgot to look at a recipe before we went grocery shopping, so after we got home I researched cheese balls based only on ingredients that I already had. This one contained Worcestersire sauce, green chilies, and garlic. Sounds nasty, right? It was SO good. I can't believe it. Seriously, a miracle. I am not trying to say I am a good cook here. I am saying, "Oh my goodness!! I made something and it actually turned out!! Not only did it turn out, it was good. Good enough that I want to eat it again." That's all.

Here's Steve with his hand up a turkey bottom.

Actually, here he has his hand between the meat and the skin, working on putting the herb rub all over the turkey. Also, so yummy.

I felt a little bit like Rachel Ray or Martha Steward or some really great creative interior designer when I had the idea of doing this for place cards.

I wrote on Christmas tree balls with a silver sharpie, and voila! Cute little place cards to hang from the glasses. It also added a nice touch of color to the table.

Everyone chipped in, even Rollie, who helped peel potatoes.

And yes, those are mimosa ingredients on the counter, if you were wondering. And Tums and an iPhone.

This is my beautiful friend Cait

who made all sorts of dishes like creamed corn, green bean casserole (with frozen green beans, not canned, which makes all the difference in the world, kind of want to eat some more of it right now), and lemon-pear salad. Such yummy food!!

The girls, in their new holiday dresses (a.k.a. "party dresses", as Tryn called them when I got her dressed that morning) spent a lot of time taking advantage of our friend Stew.


They played catch and read books. Stew was a good sport about it, like I said, everyone pitched in.

This picture is here for one reason only.

Can you figure out why? Probably not. Well, see the reflection in the potato pot? Yup, the camera and headless body? That's me. The only picture of me from the entire day. Moving on.

Although this is the funniest picture of the day, this is, unfortunately, the last picture of the day.

By this point we were running around in a stressful totally calm and composed manner trying to get everything done and on the table. In the chaos I forgot to make the cranberry sauce and we forgot to bring out Cait's lemon-pear salad, which we still got to eat later during snack/seconds/dessert time. I also didn't get any pictures of our other guests, Dan, Sinead, and Gabi. Or Kevin, who came over for breakfast. Nor our friend Ryan, who stopped by after work to partake in snack/seconds/dessert time with us. Didn't take any pics of the table all set up so pretty, nor my absolute favorite Thanksgiving food - sweet potato pie. I am also not a sweet potato person. I don't dislike sweet potatoes, but I don't really like them either, they are just meh to me. Except when they are sweet potato pie. I can't wait for leftovers dinner (again!) tonight.

I am thankful for all our friends who came over to celebrate Thanksgiving with our little family this year. It was absolutely, completely, totally, and especially so much fun.