Jay and I spent Thusday night (Thanksgiving) in the kitchen after I got off work, then picked up where we left off on Friday morning. We prepared our traditional Thanksgiving feast, and both of my children, Lauren and Adam, were here, plus Dylan and his dad (Keith, Lauren's fiance) and a friend of Lauren's were here to share with us. Everyone ate as much as they wanted, and we have plenty of leftovers, so we won't have to cook again for a while. Lauren has her engagement ring, and is going to be married soon. She's not chosen a wedding, so will likely go to a Justice of the Peace. We'll see.

The menu was fully traditional, using my grandmother's recipes, plus some of my own. We had turkey and stuffing (a triple recipe of stuffing, part of which went into the turkey and the majority of which was baked in a separate disposable foil pan), mashed potaotes, candied yams, asparagus, green bean casserole, giblet gravy, cranberry sauce, black olives, dinner rolls, devilled eggs, sour cream and garlic chip dip, and desserts (lemon merengue pie, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, toll house cookies, banana bread). It truly was worth every minute of the time we spent putting it together. Jay and I also enjoy leftovers, and will be putting some into the freezer most likely.

We took a lesson from my grandmother (she never owned a dishwasher in her life) and cleaned up as we went along, so we've run the dishwasher numerous times during the preparation and clean up. We only had two loads of dishes left for this morning, which isn't bad at all. One of those loads will be the roasting pan, which is big enough to fill the dishwasher by itself.

We decided to sleep in this morning. At some point today or tomorrow, we will begin planning Christmas decorating. We just need to keep in mind that Dylan is almost two, and into everything...