Hi guys, hope your post-turkey-day recovery is going well!

Ben and I kicked things off at my parents house on Thanksgiving morning with mimosas and cinnamon rolls, natch! My Mom had just slathered the icing onto the warm rolls as we walked into the house, as a way to entice my little brother out of bed. He flew in late the night before from Denver to be with the fam for the weekend.

Unfortunately cinnamon rolls didn’t do the trick, but the smell of hot breakfast sausage cooking with eggs and cheese worked like a charm. My Mom had a big Crock Pot Breakfast Casserole bubbling away and the whole house smelled AMAZING. If you weren’t able to make this casserole this weekend, definitely give it a whirl sometime over the holidays. It’s such a crowd pleaser, and so easy!

We all loaded up our plates then settled into watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Which, maybe it’s just me getting older and not being as hip anymore (well, anymore is debatable) but, I didn’t know 3/4 of the acts rolling by on their floats. Neon Trees? WHO?

A short time later the babies arrived!

My niece, Evie, treated us all to an episode of The Cute Factor.

(and tried to not cry at my brother’s hideous no-shave Movember mustache, which was the butt of everyone’s jokes all day long. Not him, his mustache. Oh there’s a cobweb in this corner? No worries, Ryan’s mustache will take care of it!” GROSS.)

While my nephew, Finn, along with his bear, played us all a piano concert.

Mini-Mozart!

The rest of the afternoon consisted of playing, and losing miserably, at cards. Seriously I have never failed so hard at Hearts. I think I got the queen 15 times out of 18 or so hands. :(

And watching copious amounts of football. I can’t even handle this picture. I don’t know what’s more cute – the fact that father & son are perfect mirror images, or that my nephew looks like a 70 year old man trapped in a 3 year old’s body. HILAR!

The dishes started coming out of the oven, and coming together around 3:00. Time for the big event!

My Mom had an amazing feast prepared, per usual. I am so grateful for her!

I piled my plate with Party Potatoes Deluxe,

Luann’s Kale Salad (my contribution,)

Steamed green beans with bacon & onion (OMG,)

along with mashed potatoes & turkey, of course. Look at that crispy skin! I also need to share my Mom’s mashed potato recipe with you sometime. Best I ever had.

For “dinner dessert” – separate from actual dessert, of course – I enjoyed Grandma’s Holiday Salad and Sweet Potato Stuffed Apples.

All my holiday favorites, in one delectable plate. Did I say how thankful I was?! ;)

Like the rest of America, we all pretty much fell into a food coma next, finishing out the football games, then moving on to watch The Avengers. I thought it was pretty good, though I’m still unclear as to what Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner’s powers were. I am not a fun person to watch movies with. At all. All questions, all the time.

Before the babies had to head home to bed, we took our standard group shot.

‘Til next year! ;)

In other news…

Thank you for being understanding as I took a few days off this week. I really appreciate it. :)

I took the time to go to Homemakers approximately 1,500 times with my Mom while she decided between a few new couches (thank goodness for free cookies and coffee!) and see Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 with her. All I have to say is, THE ENDING! So amazing!

I also hung up my Christmas decorations! There is nothing more cozy that, well, cozying in for the night next to the soft twinkle of Christmas lights. After a streak of record highs last week, we’re officially entering bone-chilling wind and cold land. May even see a few snowflakes this week. Eep!

Oh well, ’tis the season!

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend! :D