Delicious Feast

Thanksgiving this year was great, and particularly memorable because it was the first celebratory meal in my mom and Steve's new house. I made a ton of food, we ate a ton of food--except for the nagging headcold I battled all weekend, it was everything it was supposed to be. This year there were so many things to be thankful for, but first and foremost on my list is always this guy...

Be prepared, a photo dump is coming! Our Thanksgiving in photos...

Grandma and her Bubba

Mommy's Grandma (GiGi)

Mommy's Pawpaw

Uncle Garrett (smiling for a photo--a rare victory!)

Daddy

Uncle Dan

Grandma, Pop and Pop's Mom

As far as the food goes, you will have to forgive me. I was so consumed with eating (I am 7 months pregnant, after all!!), that I forgot to photograph all of it. The only photos I managed to snap were the things I made AFTER the eating had begun. Apologies if it doesn't look so appetizing--I can assure you it was!

Sweet Potato and Butternut Gratin 

(Skinny) Spinach Gratin

(Skinny) Sweet Potato Casserole

(Skinny) Mushroom Fennel Quinoa Stuffing

Sweet Potato Biscuits



Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake

Mind you--these were just the things that I made. We had a lot of other amazing dishes, I'm sorry I forgot to photograph them now. What's marked "skinny" was prepared for my brother, who is on a strict low-fat diet. I was tasked with cooking for him so he could enjoy our dinner with us, which I had no problems accomodating. I get most of my "slimmed-down" recipes from Skinnytaste, which is one of my favorite blogs. While most of the things I made were low-fat, the pumpkin gooey butter cake most certainly was NOT! Being a Paula Deen recipe, it had loads of butter in it. I always make it on Thanksgiving, and I figure it can't hurt us to eat such a decadent dessert once a year. I also whipped my own cream to go with it, but again, forgot to get the photo. Dessert was a particular favorite of mine (and baby's) this year!

After dinner, we ventured out to my Uncle's turkey farm down the road from my mom's house. Being Thanksgiving, we thought it was appropriate to introduce Brady to some turkeys. While it was fun, it left me feeling a little bummed out, I'm not going to lie! All those cute little baby turkeys become turkey meat in less than 20 weeks. Such a short life for such a noble bird! Ben Franklin wanted it to be the symbol of America, after all. Thank goodness they chose the bald eagle instead, can you imagine if we ate our nation's symbol on the very American holiday of Thanksgiving?

Another photo dump coming up!

The Babies

The Big Guys (The Toms)

And Farmer Brady!

I thought that last picture deserved to be super-sized, since it's my favorite. This was our Thanksgiving in a nutshell, we had a wonderful day. I hope you did too!