Thanksgiving

While Charlie & I have been married we've spent a lot of our Thanksgiving holidays traveling.  And though "Thanksgiving" dinners on a beach in Punta Cana or at a cafe in Paris are quite nice, we decided to spend our holiday at home this year.

Charlie and I both enjoy cooking so we decided to make a full traditional Thanksgiving meal, even though it would just be the four of us (well really just three) eating.  I know that cooking a turkey is not technically difficult to do, but somehow the thought of it is still a little intimidating to me.  Luckily Charlie wanted to be in charge of the bird, and he did a beautiful job.  

Once everything was on the table we had quite a spread.  We had our turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, cranberry sauce, a pecan pie and a pumpkin pie.  The sweet potatoes are always one of my favorites, and this year we used fresh green beans in the casserole and that was really yummy too.  I made both of the pies myself and I pretty much ended up eating them myself too.  Charlie had one slice of pecan, Isaac had one slice of pumpkin, and I had about 9 slices of each over the next few days.  Don't judge.  

When we bought our turkey a few days before Thanksgiving, Isaac started getting really excited.  Every time he would open the refrigerator and see it sitting in there he would ask "is it Thanksgiving time yet?"  Then on Thanksgiving day, about 20 minutes before we were ready to eat, Isaac declared that he was "SO, SO, SOOOO hungry!" and insisted that he needed a snack.  We handed him a roll and told him to wait for dinner.  Sure enough when we called him to come eat he told us "No thanks, I'm full!"  Little stinker.  We made him sit and eat with us anyway.  

We had more than enough sweet potatoes on hand, so after roasting them I set a few aside before adding all of the butter, brown sugar, etc. and mashed them up for Luke.  He had just started eating rice cereal a few days before, so sweet potatoes were his second new food.  I thought it was appropriate for his first Thanksgiving.  And he loved them!  

And of course Cracker was there patiently waiting by our feet for any little bits of turkey we might be willing to share with him.  He got enough to put him into a sleepy turkey coma for the rest of the night.  

And there you have it!  The Wood Family Thanksgiving of 2011.  It was simple and quiet and perfect.  Our lives are full of blessings and we feel very thankful for all that we have.