Giving Thanks

I can't believe it been over a week since Thanksgiving! Between being in charge of our big move at work during the day and my nights being consumed with all the things I need to make in time for Christmas, time is FLYIN'! And since Thanksgiving is my 2nd favorite holiday (St. Patrick's Day being my 1st) AND this is our first year with a successful turkey dinner I couldn't let it pass without a posting (even if it's over a week late).

We had our guinea pigs (my dad, Jen and Joe) over for an afternoon lunch again. We tried this last year and it was a total disaster so we figured we owed it to them. Really we just needed to prove to ourselves we could make a delicious dinner and since they were such good sports about the raw turkey last year we figured anything would be an improvement for them! And in our defense we had no control over the turkey being raw. We had NO idea one of the heating coils in our stove was going to blow on such a crucial day! Which really just screwed everything up because I did my best to time it so the sides would be ready when the turkey was supposed to be ready. So not only did we have raw turkey, we had cold sides! TERRIBLE!! Absolutely terrible! Good thing it was just the 5 of us and everyone had a better meal waiting for them later in the day, except my poor dad!

So really there's no where to go but up after that experience! I even made a nervous joke about how there was the chance the 2nd heating coil could blow this year. Knock on wood they both made it through the whole 4 hours we needed them to.

Dave made a delicious turkey; the little red thingy even popped up (yes that was the most exciting part of the entire day)! I can't take any credit for that though, he even cleaned it! But I must say I impressed myself with my side dishes (I don't normally toot my own horn but I thought they were delicious). I was even brave enough to try and make my own apple crumb and pumpkin pie (I know neither are trivial but my scar from last year is still healing and I've never made a pie before, maybe next year I'll get really crazy and even try making my own pie shells!)

And since I knew I had to go into work on Thanksgiving I baked the pies and prepared all my sides the night before so all I had to do was bake them for 30 min., which I did while Dave was preparing the turkey for dinner. So the timing couldn't have worked out any better and it made everything stress free.

I even decided to be a little fancy now that our dining table is set up. Dave bought some flowers and I sewed a fall table runner. I even pulled out the china for it's first time use! I was a little weary (I'm super paranoid about breaking anything) but then I thought, what the hell do I have it for if it's going to sit in it's plastic storage cases for all of eternity?!!

I even got to use the claddagh napkin rings Jen got us for our first anniversary.