All grown up and cooking a turkey...

Thanksgiving this year was pretty different. And by different I mean small. My dad is back east visiting my brother's family so it was just going to be my sister, her husband and my family. My cousin Tiffany and her family came down to join us, so it was dinner for 10.

Caitlin, Tiffany and I started cooking last night.

We had lots to do and lists and plans and ingredients spread over every available surface in the kitchen.

We worked quite well together at first.

It wasn't a case of too many cooks in the kitchen...

as much as three very silly, very tired, easily entertained women.

(As I mentioned last night, Caite and Tiffany both snorted soda pop out their noses at some point.)

Caitlin kept laughing so hard she would fall down.

And there was a whole lot of this position happening as well...

Bent over and crossing the legs so as not to wet your pants because you are laughing so hard!

It was a long night but one of the most fun I've had in a long time. 

 We caught a few hours of sleep and then it was right back to cooking, cooking, cooking.

We had fun setting the tables all cute, especially the kid's table.

Tiff made the cute turkeys with crayons for tails and I printed off a bunch of Thanksgiving themed coloring and activity pages for them. And their names are spelled out with letter shaped cookies. 

I hit the wall as I was scrubbing the potatoes and had to take a caffeine break.

And then it was time to feast!

The turkey was so tender we didn't even have to carve it, it just fell apart. 

(The turkey was totally a group effort this year as I called my dad for step by step directions, wrote them down, and passed them on to Caite who followed them. Go team!)

We also had mashed potatoes and gravy, squash, corn, green beans, fruits, salad, and delicious homemade rolls. (The rolls were the main reason we were up baking into the wee hours of the morning, but oh, they were so worth it...)

And then, because we couldn't decide on one, we had a dessert bar that included:

Spice bites

 (gingerbread tartlets with a white chocolate and cream cheese filling)

Pumpkin pie

Snickerdoodles

Chocolate chip cookies

Sticky buns

and 

Rice krispie treats

Yum.

The cute kids enjoying their coloring pages and spelling things with cookies.

The aftermath.

Typical.

It was a good Thanksgiving and it's also good to know that if anything ever happened to my dad we would still be able to celebrate holidays that require you to cook a turkey...