Lots to be thankful for

We had the most wonderful of Thanksgivings.  Larry and I have SO much to be thankful for.  This was our first Thanksgiving together, in our new home, and our families were coming to celebrate with us and help us give thanks for this amazing, incredible year we have had. 

This Thanksgiving was also the first time I had ever roasted a turkey.  Crazy, I know.  Forty-seven years old, never cooked a turkey.  I've just never had to.  Mama always does the turkey and the dressing.  This year, though, since we were hosting dinner in our new house, Larry and I decided we'd roast the turkey.  We were excited to try out our new roasting oven so we got up at 5:30 and rubbed that turkey down with butter and seasoned him up good and I stuffed bunches of rosemary, thyme and sage in the cavity.  That was the extent of my "stuffing" that turkey.  It's dressing down here in the south and we make a pan of it and serve it beside the turkey.  It gets nowhere near, ahem, that area.  It's okay if you do the stuffing thang, we just don't.  Okay, so we get that sucker all ready and put him in the roaster and start the clock.  The instructions say for a boy this big (22.1 pounds!), he is to cook at 350 degrees for 4 1/2 hours.  Well, I'll just tell y'all it's a good thing I watched his temperature like a crazy woman with a pointy meat thermometer because he was DONE in just under three and a half hours.  We started him out breast down and after three hours, that breast was 165 degrees.  We took him out, flipped him over onto a roasting pan and put him in the regular oven to brown another half hour.  He was completely done and registering 175 by that time.  We could have easily taken him out of the roaster at 2 hours and browned for 30-45 minutes.  Just giving y'all a head's up in case you ever want to buy/use an Oster roaster oven.  The instructions are wrong.  We'd a'been eating sawdust and dressing if we had followed those instructions. 

He was beautiful!!  Brown, juicy and delicious.  Not one place on him was dry.  Here's Larry carving him up!

We also cooked a 12-pound ham and I added a brown sugar glaze once it was done.  It was most yummy!!

Mama made this adorable cake (red velvet, my favorite!) for us.  

 Here are me and my mommy right here!

I used as many of my vintage dishes to serve in as I could.  This one is from a set of three Glasbake dishes that Rhiana and Juan got for me at an estate sale in Atlanta last weekend!  I'd seen the sale advertised online and Larry and I just couldn't go.  We were both nursing some ailments, Larry's back and my neck. So we asked them to go and I said to just get me one piece if they were even still there.  Not only were the pieces all still there but they got me all three pieces, plus a bunch of ramekins and soup bowls with lids, too! 

I steamed some fresh asparagus with lemon butter and I thought they were just perfect for that Green Floral Daisy dish!

We had a feast!  Sweet potato souffle, green bean casserole, bacon-wrapped green beans, zipper peas, homemade mac and cheese, roasted potatoes, sweet peas, those delicious Mennonite dinner rolls and Mama made about a dozen sweet potato and pumpkin pies.  I know I'm forgetting something!  Feast, I tell ya!

Juan, Rhiana and the girls stayed with us until this afternoon and we so enjoyed having them.  We had so much fun!  We planned a few activities to do with the girls and we had a great time making memories with them.  We may have even started a few traditions!

We made a gingerbread house!

And Emma and I drew pictures with sidewalk chalk...

While Paw Paw and Elizabeth made a birdhouse.

And Paw Paw showed both girls how to build a cotton ball snowman!

We watched Fried Green Tomatoes, Frosty The Snowman, Christmas Vacation and Forrest Gump and Juan and Larry even ventured out for a quick trip to Walmart last night. 

We had such a great time.  We talked and we laughed and we played and we ate and we laughed some more.  

Yep.  Lots to be thankful for this year.