A Day In The Life: Thanksgiving

So, I know Thanksgiving was a week and a half ago....I've just been real busy this past week. :)

So, I hosted my first Thanksgiving this year. However, I did get lucky in that I only had about 20 of my family members, instead of the normal 35. I'm not sure 35 would fit so well in my house.

I spent a few days preping my house. I had to do a lot of cleaning. I generally keep my house up okay, but I really wanted to do some deep cleaning, you know clean the baseboards, the drapes, under the TV and couch (a sweep and then mop) and all of the other furniture. My Aunt Jodie did keep Ethan for me one day, and so that helped so much.

I also made little pumpkin center pieces. I used the mini pumpkins to make candleholders. And then I used larger pumpkins to do flower center pieces. I'm quite proud of them.

My family does do Thanksgiving potluck style every year which makes everything so much easier on the host. So I really only had to do the turkey and stuffing. So I know I lucked out again on that. I did my turkey (a 22 lb. turkey) with a herb butter under the skin. I think it made it so tender doing that, but it did make it hard to do the gravy cause there was so much fat in the roasting pan. I was very happy with my stuffing. I know its basic to do, but this was my first time and I didn't want to overcook it and make it really dry.

We also celebrated Ethan's birthday with my family on Thanksgiving. It was over a week early, but I wanted to do it then 1) since we had my family there already and 2) since Greg's parents were going to be here the following weekend and we already had so much planned. I made him a baseball cake. We had found A's hat candles at the A's game one time, so I made a baseball field for them to go on. My cousin Don Jr. had his birthday the next day. So I made him a fondant Raider helmet cupcake. (He's totally into the Raiders, not so much the A's.) Too bad the picture didn't come out so well. I was a little bummed about that, but it did look pretty cool.