Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving-er

Husband and I are little fat kids on the inside. Is that okay for me to say? Probly not, huh?

Oh, well.

It's important that you know this about us. We have inner fat kids. It's a thing. Sorry if I'm offending anyone.

We. Really. Like. Food. (and usually not the good-for-you kind)

So it's only appropriate that starting last year - our first married Thanksgiving - we have two Thanksgivings every year. We spend Thanksgiving day with my family, and then his family drives up on Friday and we have a second Thanksgiving, which has been dubbed Thanksgiving-er. Because it's more Thanksgiving? I guess?

Last year, we were both actually really sick on Thanksgiving, so we missed part 1 with my family.

Thanksgiving-er is smaller scale - since there are much fewer people - but its a thing we do... maybe because we are looking for any excuse to gorge ourselves.

This year both Thanksgivings were a success.

Starting with the festivities at my parents' house on Thursday. Luckily, not everyone brought their dogs. We ended up with a ratio of 18 people to 8 dogs.

While we still had the light, we took some immediate family pictures - parents, sisters, husbands and pups. Panda was not so very cooperative.

Harry's always down to be held in a photo.

We had an amazing Thanksgiving spread. We do it potluck style.
We had turkey, 2 kinds of stuffing, fresh cranberry sauce, some store bought cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes & gravy, salad, maple butter sweet potatoes, stuffed grape leaves, sourdough rolls, butternut squash risotto, and a duck.

I somehow managed to get a little bit of everything onto my plate.

Cousins took silly pictures with food.

Harry got in on that too.

After dinner, we vegged out on some of the James Bond marathon on Syfy, as is tradition.

It was Indy's first time. I think he dug it.

After dessert, I fell asleep on the living room floor - full to the point that my body could only digest and not properly pump blood to my brain.

Aside from gathering to eat, Friday was very different.

I got up early and ran a 5k, so I wouldn't feel bad for the carbo-loading I knew would ensue that evening.

Tim's parents showed up around 2, we relaxed for a bit, and then we cooked.

His mom brought up the desserts, and took care of the mashed potatoes while I made pumpkin gnocchi and biscuits, and Tim barbecued ribs and chicken. We legit forgot to make a salad.

Little sister and her friend came over too!

Panda was happy to be the star of the show again.

I managed to watch what I was putting on my plate a little better during Thanksgiving-er. I was nice to not totally stuff myself.
Most of our leftovers are gone now, but we threw some of it in the freezer since as of Monday morning, we are juice cleansing.

I really love Thanksgiving. Family, food, puppies running everywhere (since there is a very slight pressure on my sister and I to start popping out babies, but we don't talk about it since it will inevitably lead to a polite and awkward smile from one of us that says "Butt out").

Thanksgiving is awesome. It's hugs and love and stuffing yourself until you can't see straight and being reminded of all the wonderful things in your life - like grandparents and genius cousins and a beautiful house to gather and share a meal.

How was your Thanksgiving?