Happy {Belated} Thanksgiving

I did not take one single picture of Thanksgiving activities. FAIL.  In my defense, I was busy cooking, refereeing, and visiting! This was my first Thanksgiving to host and cook dinner and, most importantly, cook the turkey!  I was so nervous to cook it all myself and I didn't believe my mom when she said it was an easy meal to cook. It was though! It was cleanup that was a bear! And even though I'm a wash as I go kind of cook (out of necessity since I don't have a dishwasher) there were still plenty of dishes to wash. Thankfully Daphne (MIL) stayed and helped with dishes. She actually came early to help cook but I was nearly done already so she peeled potatoes and then played with Shane. 

I brined a turkey overnight, and then cooked it in an oven bag. It was the best turkey I've ever tasted, so moist! I also did mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn casserole, buns, deviled eggs, gravy, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce (out of a can, ick), banana cream pie, and a pumpkin roll which I made on Tuesday.  It was yummy! I always feel guilty on Thanksgiving--why do we need so much food, you know? Tradition I guess. Still it was WAY overkill for what ended up being only 3 adults. If I'd know there would be so few people I would NOT have cooked so much. It was just Andrea (SIL), Daphne (MIL), and me. Nathan doesn't eat thanksgiving food--his thanksgiving is a bacon sandwich and the banana cream pie.  Justyn (BIL) ended up not coming because he had to work. And Brian (FIL) was here for an hour or so but left as I was carving the turkey, so he didn't eat with us. And speaking of carving the turkey...that was a sight to have seen! I've never carved a turkey, or even seen one carved! I was trying to look it up on my phone while I carved it with an incredibly dull knife. Thankfully it was fall-apart tender so I didn't actually need to cut much! And I was carving it with the pan over the sink because the bag and the pan were so full of juices, and then it fell into the sink (good thing I'd just washed it out!) It was funny.

This is one of the activities I had for Shane while I cooked Thursday morning.

Then on Friday we went the the annual day-after-Thanksgiving Christmas parade. We've gone before, and were given free seats, and then we tried to go again last year but it was a bust. We actually went the first year we were married as well but I didn't have a blog back then.  We were give three seats this year as well, by a woman who had some extras. Neat how God makes that happen each year I'm pregnant! lol. This year our little family went with Grammy and the cousins. 

Cousin Alie

Grammy (Daphne)

Cousin Elvis--I wore him in my Moby Wrap to keep him warm. 

And of course, my favorite of them all, sweet Shane. He was SO enthralled by the lights and the music and the horses. I'm really glad we took him!