Thanksgiving

This year my mom and sister Amanda drove down from Charleston to spend Thanksgiving with us... Dad stayed in Charleston to look after my grandmother who is in the hospital (we missed you Dad!!!). So... we actually made a turkey and an entire Thanksgiving dinner! This was a first for us... in the past we have always been at a family or friend's house. Well, one year we did have Thanksgiving on our own, but we didn't really attempt to cook much of anything so it doesn't count!

The first item on the agenda on Thanksgiving Day was the Turkey Trot, which I mentioned below. Then, my mom, sister, and I set up a plan in the kitchen and spent the whole day preparing! Eric handled the turkey and did an awesome job with our new infrared oil-less turkey fryer! Here is the end result:


Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato, stuffing, crockpot mac n' cheese, green beans, roll, gravy, and cranberries! Plus I made a butternut squash soup and pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing! Everything was delicious and I will go ahead and state for the record: there is no WAY I could have done this on my own... thank goodness mom and Amanda were there to help!! :)

We ate out on the lanai (of course) because this is about as formal as we get around here!



The next day the girls hit the mall for some Black Friday shopping (with the kids, not good except for this cute little fire truck cart we rented!) while Eric went to work.


In the afternoon we picked up my grandfather who flew in from Houston to spend a few days with us before driving back with my mom to Charleston.

On Saturday we went to see the manatees at the power plant, but there weren't too many to see this time. We still enjoyed walking around the little butterfly garden and on the pier over the marsh area. Our electric company actually does a really nice job with this whole nature area right next to their big, ugly power plant!






Amanda took some awesome pictures of the kids in the backyard while she was here, along with a family picture that I'll be using on our Christmas cards this year.






And finally, I have to mention how I used the rest of our leftover turkey last night! My friends Katie and Lindsay are always talking about the Pioneer Woman and her fabulous recipes so I decided to finally try one. I made White Chicken Enchiladas (with leftover turkey instead) and OH. MY. GOODNESS. They were amazing! Of course, it is not in any way a healthy recipe... it's just good ol' comfort food. Every once in a while you have to splurge (although I did use much less cheese than it called for!) and this one is worth it!