How It Went

 Elijah woke up from his nap to find:  

Eli: "A Chicken!"

Me:  "No, it's a turkey, Elijah."

Eli:  "I'm not a turkey!!" (indignantly)

 Sam made mulled cider while Dad carved the bird.

 Here is the final end to all this cooking:  Turkey (the brine was wonderful, Mom), Candied Sweet Potatoes, Stuffing and Cranberry Sauce.

 Mashed Potatoes, Gravy and Rolls.  I ended up skipping the green bean casserole because there were no fresh green beans at the store (one less thing to cook).  I forgot to mention mashed potatoes in my plan, but the boys peeled, cubed and cooked up some potatoes in the morning and I mashed and seasoned them.

 Bronwyn got to taste her first turkey.  :)  She loved it and ate quite a bit.

 So thankful.  The Lord is so good. 

 Ready to feast.

 I made Bron a little plate of food so that she could try different things.  She didn't end up eating a whole lot of it, but she tried everything.

 She put a bite of stuffing in her mouth and disliked it so much that she quickly spat it out and threw it on the floor.  I *lightly* spanked her hand and told her "no" so that she would know that throwing her food on the floor wasn't OK to do.  She *really* didn't like that, as you can see.  We all laughed at her drama over the stuffing.

 Just once a year, and it always tastes so good!

And here are the pies.  They were good too.  On Thanksgiving day, I thought, "I don't think I care if I ever do this again."  I was exhausted and the cooking really did wipe me out.  Then we ate just a little bit of pie, because we were so full.  I wondered why I had thought I needed to make 4 of them.

Two days later, I'm loving all these leftovers!!  It has been so sweet to not cook for a couple of days afterwards and just enjoy good leftovers.  Hmm....maybe I will be doing it again another year after all.