giving thanks

agabas traveled south for the turkey weekend.  we met up with both family and friends, and friends who are essentially family, and settled in for a long weekend of baking, cooking, eating, resting, snuggling, duke game watching, and memory making.  by far the best part of the week was when florence ruth made her appearance.  read about that here!  

i would like to boast that this was the best feast i have ever participated in.  none of the dishes were fillers, every single one was creative and delicious. the photos tell the story best, so ill add details as we go...

we had a big group (sans papa :( ) gathered at my parents place in nc.  this was the day before feast day as everyone assembled and the baking/turkey prep began. we also watched our fair share of sports, including a duke game! there was plenty of lounging, as you can see...

gang's all here

my brother paul and his friend martin were in charge of the turkey, which meant frilly aprons of course. they brined it in a mixture of brown sugar, orange, bay leaves, garlic and various other herbs and let it sit all night. they did a fantastic job...more on that later.

 please notice the bald spot on the back of eden's head from laying on her back...

i recently learned to knit and that headband is my first attempt.

both eden and daddy loved the time they got together this week, 

since they are usually ships passing

 martin had not been around many babies, so he got a kick out of eden.

 and eden watched WAY too much tv...

and we all gathered for an evening meal.  eden was the centerpiece 

 ms. pregnant the lovely was reading a recipe and getting ready to bake a delicious pie here.  

had to capture her in all her 9 month glory!  

some post-baking knitting for this mama

bryan and eden hung out on turkey day morn

and of course we watched the parade

breakfast was overnight pumpkin french toast with pecans.  um.  yum.  had to get our tummies properly stretched.

the boys worked on the bird while the ladies did...everything else

giving thanks

the feast... smoked turkey (uh mazing), sweet potato and black bean hash with kale, home made stuffing (family recipe), spicy green beans, aunt val's cranberry and apple salad, ROLLS, mashed potatoes, salad and of course, gravy.  it. was.absurd.

the turkey was so so well done.  i do not even like turkey in general and i ate so much of it.  see my little turkey checking out the turkey?

then came dessert.  we had three pies.  a salted caramel chocolate pecan pie (made by elise), a brandied pumpkin pie (made by elise and me) and a cranberry chess (made by me).  my chess pie did not turn out to be very pretty (though it tasted delightful and refreshing).  my brother lovingly referred to it as humble pie because it was the ugliest of the bunch.  

thanks paul

hanging around post-feastus

football, spades and chess

the expectant ones.  elise went into labor the very next day and we got to meet little florence on saturday.  they had no idea how much they would love her.  

and now their lives are forever changed...

as you can see, we did it up properly and enjoyed every single minute of it.  hope your turkey day was wonderful and you remembered to be thankful for everything in your 

very very blessed life.