Happy Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving Day started bright and early.  We have been feeling a shortage on turkey leftovers in years past so I rummaged through the super market for the biggest turkey I could find and came up with a 26lber (hoping to find bigger next year).  The suggested cooking time was 7-8 hours so J and I got up at 5:00a.m. to get it cooking in plenty of time for a 1:30 meal time.  I used a brine this year for the first time and it made the morning work so much less.  I soaked the Turkey in the brine from noon the day before so it was already cleaned out and all I had to do was dry it off and stuff it with the stuffing I made the night before.  

So by 5:20 our bird was in the oven and we were wide awake so we slipped out of the house and left the kids sleeping since JonJon and Ooney were here and went off to find breakfast at the Cracker Barrel.  It would have been a great plan except the Cracker Barrel doesn't open until 6:00.  We decided to head home and wake the kids and come back.  It ended up to be a pretty memorable Thanksgiving day breakfast.

When we got home Carrot decided to make so Thanksgiving place cards which turned out super cute.

Just when I had finished putting the last details on the table I decided to give the turkey a good basting and to my surprise the thermometer said it was done.....WHAT....it was only 10:00a.m.  Sure enough after using two other thermometer it sure was done so by 10:30 we took the turkey out, gave everyone a call to see if they could come a little early, covered it well with foil and hoped for the best.  It was actually really nice to get it out early because I had so much extra time to get my homemade gravy made and everything done and cleaned up before our guest arrived.  The turkey didn't even seem to suffer from the wait.  I have since found out that the brine could possible cause it to cook faster.

Banana and dad played games all morning

Carrot and I resurrected some old Thanksgiving decorations I had made as a teenager out of wood.  All they needed was a little glue and they were as good as new.

Carrot posing with the glitter pumpkin

....and pose again with the set table

It was a great day full of family and fun and I have so much to be thankful I can't even begin to list them all but God has blessed us so much with awesome kids, good health, and adoption that we started not knowing how to pay for it and he has provided and the list goes on and on.

VERY THANKFUL!