thanksgiving 2010

What a Thanksgiving this year! Our day started out early… a little too early even for me. Just before 3 a.m. Laura woke up crying. We’d heard her cough strangely, but hoped it wasn’t what we thought it sounded like. Unfortunately, it was exactly that. The poor girl was throwing up every 20-30 minutes. After the second changing of bed linens and pajamas, Drew and I decided to just head downstairs, make a pot of coffee, and start the day. So around 4 he dragged the Christmas tree up from the basement, we put a movie on Netflix Instant, and I rocked Laura who alternated between sleeping and being sick and D. put up the tree. (I sure could have used advise on how to remove dark circles under eyes… it was a looooong day.)

Despite Laura not feeling well, she was a real trooper. She slept on one of us for most of the morning, woke up as our family arrived, and then took a long nap while we ate dinner, so in a strange way it all kind of worked out. My parents, Drew’s mom, his aunt, and his brother all came over and it was a really nice time! The day before I’d made a centerpiece for the table:

It was pretty cheap to put together, considering how expensive floral arrangements are! The boys painted grocery bags and we cut out the leaves. (This craft was in a recent issue of Family Fun.)

I love any excuse to use our dining room and pull out my good china! I think the table looked really pretty and there was plenty of room for the nine of us. I think this is the first time we ever used both table leaves, but it made a huge difference!

While I was cooking, Noah took it upon himself to decorate the Christmas tree. Ahem…

Finally it was time for dinner. My timeline was off by about 30 minutes, but considering the sick baby girl, I didn’t think that was so bad. We had roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes with cinnamon butter, green beans, roasted butternut squash and apple with cranberries and pecans, cranberry sauce, cranberry-citrus relish, green salad, corn bread, and wheat rolls. (I think that’s everything.) Dessert was apple pie and pumpkin cheesecake. Everyone was pretty hungry when I made them smile for this photo:

And finally the princess woke up, feeling a little better, but still not quite herself:

All in all, it was a pretty stress-free Thanksgiving. I loved hosting it and everyone wants us to do it again next year, so I was thankful for that! I don’t mind the cooking, especially when the kids are much better behaved because they have all their toys. So now it’s time to decorate for Christmas and plan my Christmas Day menu!