Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great and very low key Thanksgiving celebration this afternoon, with 7 of us gathering for dinner (lunch? What do you call it when the meal time is at 1?) We had everyone sign up to bring something, but once everyone did, with the exception of cranberries, everything coming was a carbohydrate, which, while tasty, doesn't exactly make for the most well-balanced or colorful thanksgiving meal :) I am learning to really enjoy cooking, and some of my favorite holiday dishes are the colorful ones--green bean casserole and sweet potato gratin--yum! We also needed some type of protein, so I threw some chicken drumsticks in the crockpot with an amazing marinade of cranberries, catalina salad dressing, and lipton onion soup mix (trust me, it's amazing). The recipes will all be posted on my food blog, but here are photos from our afternoon!

Chuck hanging out before everyone arrivedOur buffet table, Jenn arranged everything for us!The wonderful puppy Fletcher, who was amazingly well behaved!My attempt at an artistic shotOur wonderful spread! The gang filling their plates--they look hungry! (Dave, Amber, Andy, Jenn, Peter, Chuck)Our post-meal Christmas Carol sing along, Amber is an amazing pianist! Peter was attempting to work the metronome. Another artistic attempt using the mirrors.The gorgeous Jennifer!Chuck decided to forgo the sing a long and took a post meal power napSo Jenn was house sitting, this is where we held our gathering. They have two cats they apparently put on leashes which we thought was entertaining. Here's Jenn trying to walk one of the cats--they didn't get very far. Andy attempting to walk the other cat...again they don't look very excited about moving!Jennifer with FletcherThe boys post-dinner game of HORSESo in case anyone is keeping track, I managed to hurt myself AGAIN today. I totally did not see a step, was wearing heels, and the combination led to a massively twisted ankle. So while the boys played basketball I sat with ice on my foot. And now it's hours later and I kind of think it hurts worse than it did earlier. This is NOT my week health-wise!In addition to Thanksgiving, today was also Dave's birthday! We didn't have any candles, so we used the dinner table candles and he blew them out before we cut the pumpkin cheesecake I had made!Peter and I after dessert