Thankful for Thanksgiving

Well, our long weekend is almost over - for us, it's alternated between completely relaxed and completely crazy, but I think maybe that's a reflection of my life most of the time anyway. HA!
This year on Thanksgiving day I was determined to keep it easy and relaxed for my family. Since Mark had signed up for Black Friday overtime, he had to get up to be at work at 4 am on Friday. He does most of the cooking, so in order to help him not stress over a big meal, we bought it pre-made from the Super Target! And you know what? Not only was it a great deal, it was delicious! And we still have leftovers from the abundance of food that was in that meal!

My Mom and Dad came up for the day and as I was looking at this picture, I noticed one thing that keeps my Dad entertained and relaxed - most of the time - the football game on the tv in the background! If you read my blog on a regular basis, you read about my football thing with my Dad back in September and I have to say that we enjoyed watching Dallas lose on Thanksgiving. Yep - one more thing to be thankful for!
Here's a photo of me with my parents and Emma:

This year our celebration of the day was so relaxed, we didn't even get out the good dishes or eat in the dining room. We just used our everyday stuff and hung out at the kitchen table. Well, it is easier to keep up with the football action that way! I also have to add that Emma and I didn't plan to match our outfits, I did get dressed first, but isn't it cool that our shirts match and her headband matches my sweater? Yeah, I'm a Mom like that! :)

So, here is my plate of yummylicious Thanksgiving feast before I dug in. (Tiffany, this picture is for you!) The only thing we added that was homemade was the Macaroni and Cheese which is my Grandmother's recipe and the sweet iced tea. We are southerners, even here in Northern Virginia and you just can't have a decent meal without sweet iced tea!

I just realized how brown my plate looks, but I passed on the Green Bean Casserole. Apparently Target doesn't realize that you don't make it with mushrooms! Yuck!
And wanna hear something really funny? There was so much food packed into the meal package we bought, we totally forgot to warm up the rolls and didn't even miss them!
As you can see, we had plenty of gravy - Mark enjoyed it immensely - but no rolls for sopping up the drips.

Don't let the smiles fool you, they just wanted me to hurry up and take the picture so they could EAT!

All in all we had a wonderful day together - I don't get nearly enough time with my family and I treasure every moment when we are all together. This year, Mark's Mom couldn't be with us because of her job and his Dad and Peg had a houseful of company, and we missed them all. But I'm thankful for what we did have - a warm, wonderful, easy day.

Stamped blessings,
~~Robin