This Thanksgiving marked the first time I would host and cook the majority of a holiday meal myself. I received lots of help from my brother, Mom, and Tim, so I can't take all credit. I learned, though, that when you are the one taking the time to plan, prepare, cook, and create this spread of food, you find yourself without an appetite all day. When it came time to sit down and eat, I just wasn't too hungry. And me, who is always looking forward to desserts, skipped it. Even into the evening, I didn't eat any. That can't be said for the following day, though :)
Wednesday I took the day off work to start of my day preparing and cooking. Once I had everything in front of me, it turned out not to be as full of a day as I thought it would be. Plus, I knew Josh was coming so I intentionally put off a bunch of tasks. That backfired, though, when he didn't get down here as soon as I thought he would!
Since it was such a warm day I brought the dogs up to the deck to keep me company for the day. They mostly slept and lounged in the sunshine but I did get one shot where they were nice and alert.
Tim and I planned on making a cheesecake Wednesday night. What I didn't plan on was Tim spending close to two hours in Hy-Vee and coming home with a trunkload of groceries! LOL- he said he went in for a couple cheesecake supplies and came out with spending over $200! He gets more and more into food and cooking everyday so the man can't be trusted in a grocery store anymore. You never know what he is going to come home with!
Once the turkey was placed snuggly onto the smoker and all the cheesecakes were finally baked, it was just after 1:30am when we hit the bed.
Before we knew it, we heard Grammy and Papa's wakeup call of the front doorbell at 7:21! Ohhh, gawdddd was all I said while not moving a muscle. I let Josh take one for the team unlock the front door. I pulled myself from bed a couple minutes later only to find my Dad in Kaydin's room waking her up at the crack of dawn. He was just too excited and had to get her outta bed. Problem was, she was too excited last night that her Uncle Joshie was here that she probably didn't go to bed until almost 10:30-11:00! That didn't matter, though, cuz once she saw my Mom and Dad's face, she jumped out of bed and was on her feet in .2 seconds!
Once we were all up and breakfast was in the oven, it was time to break out the Black Friday ads.
As if cooking a full meal for eight people wasn't enough, I also planned a full breakfast complete with French toast casserole, sausage, egg, and cheese quiche, and strawberry cream cheese Butter Braid bread.
Breakfast Spread |
Tim brought this home from his grocery trip. He thought his little Kaydin Baby needed an orange juice container of her own apparently :)
A little leg wrestling with Grandpa Arnold.
Kaydin even joined in the cooking, too! She helped get the baguettes laid out to be toasted.
Appetizers
JalapeƱo
Dip w/ toasted baguettes
Artichoke
Dip w/ toasted baguettes
Vegetable
tray with ranch dip and hummus
Cheese
and cracker tray
Relish
tray- pickles and olives
Main course and sides
Smoked
Turkey
Smoked Pork Loin
Cheesy
Crockpot Potatoes
Cream
cheese and chive potatoes
Turkey
Gravy
Green
bean casserole
Cole
slaw salad w/ cranberries and almonds
Escalloped
Corn (2 ways)
Carolyn’s
Cookie Salad
Cranberry
Sauce
Whole
wheat dinner rolls
Crescent
rolls
Dessert
Pumpkin
Pie w/ fresh vanilla bean whipped cream
Chocolate
Chip Pie
Pumpkin
Pie
Peanut
Butter Cheesecake
Snickerdoodle
Cookies
Appetizer Spread |
Turkey carving time! In our family, it's usually done with the hands. Not much knife slicing happens on our holidays. I remember back when I was really little, my family was usually close to the first to show up to my Grandpa and Grandma Lyon's house. This meant that Dad was roped into the turkey carving with Grandpa, just dig in and pull apart with your hands! (Although, the last two years I have requested at least some sliced breast pieces.)
Still working on building up a bigger collection of pictures with Dad. It would be much easier if he would just look and smile, though!
Entree and Sides Spread |
Later that evening we had a fierce battle for the wishbone. It turned out no one won, though, because it wasn't dried out enough. We had to pick up that battle later the next morning and Kaydin turned out to be the successful one!
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving with their family! I also hope everyone is enjoying this holiday season. I'm not completely done with everything on my to-do list but I have a pretty good dent in it :)
Happy Holidays!
Sounds like a wonderful Thanksgiving! It's one of my favorite holidays... so sad that it's so far away!
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