Thanksgiving: The 2011 Edition

Six years ago, when I was pregnant with Akiko, I was working at a dry cleaner in downtown Salt Lake City, where we were living at the time. I had all sorts of local celebrity customers, including President Monson, who came in once a week.

The day before Thanksgiving, another of my celebrity customers, Carol Mikita, KSL's anchor lady (don't know if she is now, but she was then), came in to pick up her dry cleaning. We made some small chit chat about what we were doing the next day. She told me she was kind of stressed because it was her turn to host that year and she had tons of food to prepare. Then she asked me what I had to do to prepare. I told her that I still had tons of mothers, grandmothers and aunties that had everything under control.

"It will be years before I have to cook anything for Thanksgiving," I told her.

"You are so lucky," she replied.

Well, years it's been, though not as many as I may have thought then, and I cooked an entire Thanksgiving feast this year. I'm not counting last year, because I didn't cook the turkey and Chelsie and I split everything, even though we did pull off quite a feat.

There was talk, a few months back, that Mike and Chelsie would come down this year from Oregon, but then Chelsie ended up getting pregnant with twins, and then she was put on bedrest last week. Everyone else in the family was either stuck on Maui or going to their in-laws.

I was kind of bummed that we didn't have a whole lot of family to share the holiday with, but we did have Joseph's brother, Sam, with us.

We did invite some friends, but somehow managed to ask too late after they'd been invited elsewhere. Oh well. Maybe next time. Or maybe for Christmas.

The nice thing about not having to host people was that I didn't feel the need to make fancy decorations or anything to make things more festive. I'm crafty, but decor is not one of my strong points.

Onto the food:

I made the pies on Wednesday. Two pumpkin-butternut and two pecan. Yes, Asher is still allergic to nuts, however, in the test results that the doctor sent back to us he actually tested negative for pecan and walnut. And since pecan pie is my favorite pie, I decided to risk it and make some anyway. So far, no bad reactions, but that's also because we're still not letting him have any pecan pie.

Thursday morning got off to kind of a slow start. Since we didn't have anyone coming over, I didn't need to tell anyone what time we were eating, so I was able to take it easy. We ended up eating around 330p, which, in my experience, is pretty standard for Thanksgiving dinner. Right?

Anyway, I spent all day prepping and cooking and every step of the way, my wonderful six year-old daughter was by my side helping. She helped stir, roll out and roll up the crescent rolls. She sauteed the onions and apples for the stuffing. She put the cut potatoes in the pot to boil. She even helped me clean and butter the turkey, which was her favorite thing to do, even though she kept apologizing to the turkey that we were about to cook and eat "him."

I didn't take a single picture of prep time. I was way too busy for that and my hands were all all sorts of gunky. But now that I've bored you all with my writing, I'll let you all revel in my Thanksgiving feast awesomeness, with pictures and captions.

My sister, Kristen, learned how to make a succulent turkey that only stays in the oven for 1.5 hours. If she can do it, I can. Thank you so much, Kristen!! The turkey was perfect!!

The rest of the spread: pumpkin-butternut pie, pecan pie, homemade crescent rolls, mashed potatoes, stuffing (not homemade, but not Stovetop, it took more effort than that), corn, sweet potatoes, roast asparagus, homemade gravy, fresh cranberry relish, and sparkling apple juice. Don't you wish you'd spent Thanksgiving with us?

Moses eagerly awaits dinner.

The patriarch makes the first cut.

The kiddie table. I think Asher ate more than Akiko and Moses combined.

Loaded up and ready to be eaten.

It was delicious.

And then there was pie.

After the meal, Akiko and Moses played slap-jack under the table.

Then the kids came to snuggle on the couch with me and watch some tv while I digested. I love Asher biting his overalls with his teeth sticking out.

Things that I'm grateful for that made this Thanksgiving special for me:

Joseph and Sam took over for the last little bit in the kitchen and finished the sweet potatoes and gravy. I was kind of burned out in the kitchen and starving and decided to do set up instead.

Akiko was so cute and helpful. I love spending time with her like this. She says helping me in the kitchen is her favorite thing to do. I just hope that someday she'll actually eat the food she helps me cook. She only ate a tiny bit of turkey, mashed potatoes and crescent rolls. She can't wait to tell her teacher on Monday all the things she helped me with.

Moses. I'm just grateful for Moses. Period. I can't even begin to describe how much I love that kid. Sweetest boy you'll ever meet. Incredibly smart, too. He's just turned four and is starting to read and do basic math. I really wish we could put him in kindergarten next fall, but we have to wait a whole year more. Bleh.

Asher was super happy and cute all day. I'm sure it had everything to do with the fact that his favorite person in the world stayed home from work. He hardly got in the way and only tried to "help" a couple times. I love this spunky child of mine. He's a hoot.

And last, but not least, I'm thankful that, even though the task was daunting and there was a lot of stuff to do, including doing things I never before had tried, Thanksgiving was almost completely stress free. I had a lot of fun and spent the holiday with the people I love most in the world. Does life get any better than that?

I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving. If you traveled, I hope your travels were safe and uneventful. If they were eventful, I hope it was the awesome can't-wait-to-tell-your-friends kind.

 Happy Thanksgiving!!