Collin: Wonderful Thanksgiving with Family and Friends

I am so thankful for the family and friends in our lives. I am especially thankful this year for the support of these people during my breast cancer diagnosis and the support that everyone gave my family.

Instead of bringing the pies, desserts or sides, I made most of the Thanksgiving meal this year including the intimidating turkey. After pulling the recipes together, I shopped at three different grocery stores to get all of the ingredients two nights before. The night before, I made all of the desserts which were pumpkin banana bread (Collin's favorite and a request), Buttermilk Glazed Fig Cakes (a hit with almost everyone), and Raspberry Chocolate Chip Muffins. This took almost 3 hours mainly because I had a helper. I was not in any hurry but just wanted to make sure these were made so that I could make everything else on the list the next morning.

Collin stirring while I prepare the ingredients for the fig cakes

Mixing the pumpkin banana bread ingredients together

The next morning, I woke up early to start preparing the rest of the meal...including the daunting task of the turkey. Thanks to Grandma H, I had a proven recipe and roasting pan. She said it was easy so I thought I would try it. Stuffing the turkey was easy. While the turkey was cooking, I made the following from scratch:

Cheesy Corn Casserole
Sweet Potato Spoonbread
Pumpkin-Carrot Soup
Kale and Collards Salad
Fruit Crumble
Queso

I was doing well and had a system down. Then, people started to arrive and the time just flew by. Aunt Lisa had to help make the Bodacious Broccoli Salad and Grandma H helped with the table and make sure the casseroles in the oven were cooked while I was finishing the salad.

Everything ready to go for the mid-day meal

Look at that turkey. Looks yummy....for those people that aren't vegetarians like me.

For the mid-day meal, Grandma H, the Harrises and the Holmes were ready to eat. Timmy loved the broccoli salad and had four helpings of it. Leah ate pretty good too. Collin only ate a few bites of turkey and then was not hungry. That was because he did not want to eat anything else on his plate. We did make him have one bite of everything before he excused himself from the table while the rest of us had seconds...and maybe thirds. Some of us then went right for the desserts.

Not too long after we finished eating and cleaned up the table and kitchen, Mimi, Papi and Dustin arrived. The kids were excited to see Mimi and then went back to playing or doing what they were doing. I loved hearing all of the sounds in the house including the guys watching football and the kids running up and down the stairs playing in Collin's costumes or with his toys. They did get tired and played with electronic games which was fine because they needed to rest.

Here are the kids playing with the different electronics. They really played well together all day. Most of the time when kids are over, someone gets their feelings hurt or there is fighting over a certain toy. I did not hear much of that during the day which was really nice.

Must be a relaxing position for her because she was like this for at least 20 minutes

Boys and their electronics

Instead of an evening meal, people ate when they were hungry. Some snacked throughout the day especially as I pulled more stuff out of the frig. I was fine with that because I was not interested in too many leftovers.

Mimi and her grand kids

Daddy took the opportunity to pull the Christmas decorations up outside. Paul was out there too so the kids wanted to play outside. I don't blame there because it was a really nice day outside.