Thanksgiving Dinner

A little early.... but we had David's family over for dinner. Matt, my Brother-in-law, is being stationed in New York in a couple weeks, so we had to do dinner early. It was originally supposed to be a "mom will do everything" dinner, but it turned into we did 90% of it. She bought everything, but we cooked it all.

But, here are some random pictures:
One year, my sister taught me how to brine my turkey. Basically, you soak it overnight in a bunch of stuff. The mixture was a little bit of salt (rubbed on the turkey), 2 oranges and 2 lemons cut in wedges, 1 onion cut in wedges, and whatever herbs I wanted to use (I think it was thyme, rosemary, sage, and basil). Oh, and lots of water. It sits in the bag overnight:



When it's time to cook, I do a little extra than most people. I put (clean) herbs all over the turkey - my dad says it looks like I'm camoflauging it! Plus, I squeeze some of the oranges and lemons over it to add a little juice. 3 sticks of unsweetened butter and boxed stuffing and you get:



Our 3-year old and 6 month old nephews were over as well. Dominic came over early - with Grandma - and played with puppies the whole time. They LOVED it! Jazz was the only one not too sure, but she was fine until he tried to pick her up. When the baby got here, Chewy thought he was pretty cool. Nicky didn't like it when Chewy left though, and started crying. Nobody could calm him down, but when Chewy went back over to him, he started smiling!

After everybody left, here's what the dogs were doing:

Jazz and Max were snuggling - Max is really hard to see behind Jazzy's big head!


Chewy was PASSED OUT in the office!

We all survived dinner. We had lots of yummy food and some really good wine from James Arthur Vineyard! We had Two Brothers, Snowy Egret, and Traminette (all 3 semi-sweet whites ~ so yummy!).