Thanksgiving Dinner

While I was pretty impressed with how The Turkey came out (we tried brining this year), I am hoping to get some more pictures from my sisters to show the real fun we had with our visitors.  I seriously have only 3 pictures from this weekend, and they're all of Scott cutting the turkey!

The kids had the whole week off and it was nice to not have to worry about schedules or homework for a while.  We did have some sickness early in the week.  Jake passed his cold to me, Eden and Andrew both had a stomach bug.  But, by the time our guests arrived Wednesday evening we were on the mend.  Dana & Guillaume caught a ride with his sister and husband, and they even made room so Michell could come from Rexburg too!

It was so nice to have the extra hands in the kitchen on the day of.  We had lots of things that would be best if we made shortly before serving.  We were shooting to eat at 3pm, and we sat down at about 3:40, so not too bad, considering all the food came from one kitchen!  There's no way it would have been all done if I had been cooking all by myself.  Here's the menu, with my own notes for next year:

turkey- saoked in a brine overnight, then we cooked it breast-side down for the first hour, came out pretty good, maybe try buttering it before cooking next year (PW makes it look so good), 11 lbs.  was a pretty good size
garlic mashed potatoes- red, unpeeled,
stuffing- added sauteed onion and celery to stovetop stuffing
cream corn- Cream Corn Like No Other from Recipes.com, remember to warm it up in the crockpot next year
green bean salad- had butter, bacon, and sliced almonds from The Girl Who Ate Everything, much better than green bean casserole, maybe use less bacon next time
spinach & cranberry salad- Jamie's Spinach salad, used store dressing, make a half recipe, since it doesn't keep well for leftovers
dessert-y sweet potatoes- from the Guthrie's, half it next year
gravy- from the drippings!
cranberry sauce

dessert: probably need to narrow it down to 3 or 4 next year, but they were all yummy, and we used our own pumpkin puree for all the pumpkin recipes
pumpkin roll
pumpkin pie
double layer pumpkin cheesecake- TGWAE
apple crisp- TGWAE, only cooked half a recipe, good thing
peppermint oreos- TGWAE, make a half recipe next year, but this was the first thing gone!