Gobble Gobble!

Last week was Thanksgiving. I was certainly missing my friends from home on Wednesday night, as some of my foggiest fondest memories of going out with them are from the night before Thanksgiving at 3rd & Spruce. However, even if we were all home, we're probably too old to even go there, as I remember being 21 or 22 and making fun of all the "old" people out on that night. Guess what? We are those old people now! Ryan and I did go to Donald & Julie's house on Wednesday night for some pre-Thanksgiving festivities. We had a great time and Connor was a such a good boy - entertaining everyone wth his smile and laugh!

We hosted everyone at our house for dinner on Thanksgiving. Luckily, Connor slept in and then  took a solid 2 hour nap in the morning so Ryan & I were able to eat breakfast, watch some of the Macy's parade, and get the house cleaned and ready.

You're supposed to wait until AFTER the turkey to take a nap, bud!

We were all done by the time my parents arrived around lunch time, so it was nice to sit and visit. Nana bought Connor the tray for his Bumbo chair, so we tried that out before eating some delicious squash.

Our dinner was delicious. I look forward to this meal 364 days a year. Ryan's mom made a turducken, which was specially ordered from the Italian Market in Philadelphia. Ryan deep-fried a turkey. He's done this for a few years now and I think they get better each year. Thankfully this year we got plenty of oil ahead of time so he wasn't running around trying to find a grocery store that was open at 4pm on Thanksgiving this year. Unfortunately, we had a little TOO much oil, resulting in an overflow when the turkey was dropped, causing my dad to have to try to find an open grocery store at 4pm to get kitty litter to soak up the oil. Not a big deal (and wouldn't be the last oil spill of the week!) and both the turkeys were amazing.

Connor slept through his first Thanksgiving dinner, which was good for me, since I had two free hands to shovel food in my mouth!

After dinner, Pop-pop continued giving Connor lessons about tools:

Until Nana stole him back:

And then the cousins talked turkey:

It wasn't a late night, since I had to work the next day and my parents headed for home pretty early. We did have a busy weekend though - on Friday we went out to dinner at the Old Corner with Adrianne and John to celebrate John's birthday. As usual, Connor was an angel.

On Saturday, we went over to Julie and Donald's house to watch the game. Ryan took the fryer and the oil over and he made a bourbon bbq sauce. Donald made a couple of sauces and they had all sorts of other good things to eat. Their whole extended family is Notre Dame fans, and we always have fun with them. I'm convinced now that they really don't care about us, they just want to see Connor. Anyway, aside from a giant fireball that almost blew up their garage when the frozen wings were dropped into the hot oil, it was a great night because the Irish beat USC, are 12-0, and are going to play for the National Championship in January! What an exciting season! I think Connor, dressed in his ND gear, is a good luck charm. Sorry I don't have any pictures - we were too concerned with eating, drinking, and cheering to remember to take some. Unfortunately, he does not have the same effect on the Eagles, but he sure looks cute trying!

We have so much to be thankful for this year - good friends, good family, and good health. We are so blessed!