Thanksgiving 2016

We had a really great Thanksgiving!

 

We actually decided to stay home this year and, for the first time in my adult life, I HOSTED!  I was so excited!  We decided to stay home because it was the first major holiday in our new home but also because, due to parenting plans and custody and all that, we won't have all five kids for Christmas.  This felt like the chance to "Christmas" without it being December 25th.  And we ended up having a really great time.

 

 

Mark fried the turkey and smoked a ham and also did the gravy and baked a broccoli cauliflower casserole.  Cady brought macaroni and cheese and deviled eggs.  I made dressing, potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, sausage balls, rolls, pecan pie, chocolate pie, and a pumpkin poke cake.  My feet hurt like hell after standing up for what felt like two days straight but I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

We had a slight incident with the turkey fryer -- there was a leak in the something or other (sorry, I'm not the one who fries the turkey) so we had to run and borrow Russell's, delaying our dinner about an hour.  I told Mark it's not a holiday if you're not running late!

 

We ate good food, drank a lot of wine, and watched football.  Pretty much the perfect Thanksgiving.

 

I also made pudding shots!  And, since I Made them for the kids, had to churn out some for the kiddies too. #Momoftheyear  The kid ones are alllll gone and we still have half of the adult ones.  Ahhh.

 

I love Thanksgiving so much.  It's all my favorite things rolled into one Thursday in November: family, friends, food, fun, and FOOTBALL.  We indulged more of that football on Friday by going to the Memphis/ Houston game.

 

Tickets were dirt cheap so we ended up with ahhhhmazing seats.

 

It was easily the best game I've seen in college football this season.  SUCH a great game.

 

 

Best part of it?  Memphis won!  Woo Hoo!

Hey, Derek Mason, WHO is the best team in Tennessee?!?  WE own this state!

After the game, we came home and watched the Hogs lose (*eye roll*), Mark and I both took long naps, and I sent the kids to bed early because they were being a-holes (#realtalk.)

The rest of our weekend was spent watching football and decorating for Christmas (more on that later this week - maybe/ hopefully.)  We went over to Russell's for a bit on Saturday to watch the Iron Bowl.

 



There's a chance Russell had all my kids screaming, "WAR EAGLE!"

Sunday was more decorating, more football, and a heartbreaker of a Bears game.  Wow!

This week is going to be interesting . . . my last week before finals and Mark is traveling all week.  Ahhh, pray for me!

Beat USF!

We started Saturday off with a little soccer and a little basketball.  K's team won 5-1 and Kyan's 22-12.  He scored two points and had more assists and rebounds than anyone else on his team!  He's one of the smallest on his team, and definitely the scrawniest, but he has a TON of heart and always wants to do his very best.

 

 

After their games, we went home and got ready for a little MEMPHIS TIGER football. 

We decided earlier in the week to head out to Tiger Lane to tailgate.  I've tailgated there before - earlier this year for the Liberty Bowl - but never for a Memphis game.  It wasn't as big as an SEC tailgate or anything but still so much fun.  The kids ran into several friends from school, played two hand touch, and jumped on the bounce houses.

 

So, we caravanned over to the game with Russell and a couple buddies of his.  We crashed their tailgate and Mark kept calling Anthony to try to find out where he was.  Turns out . . . his tailgate was right next to where we were. But it seriously took us nearly an hour to figure that out.  Ha!

 

Check out the moon!

We had every intention of going to the game but . . . well, shit happens.  We had some drama with the girls and I was pretty upset.  Then, we couldn't leave our coolers with the people we were tailgating with.  In the end, we decided just to pack it up and go home.  So that's exactly what we did, with three crying kids in tow.  Ahhhh.  Good times.  (Really, though, we had a blast tailgating until the final half hour!)

 

We came home and watched the Razorbacks lose and some more crazy ass results in college football.  What the heck happened last weekend, NCAA?!?!  2016, thou are drunk, go home.

 

Sunday morning we were up bright and early.  Mark's brother and family were in middle Tennessee so we headed a little ways up I-40 to meet them for brunch.  I found a restaurant called "Patty's" in Wildersville that had good reviews on Yelp so we decided to meet there.  Um, probably one of the best decisions ever.

 

Mark and I both chose the buffet -- which had meatballs, fried chicken, pork chops, mashed potatoes, macaroni, fried cauliflower, four kinds of veggies, rolls, and three different desserts, plus a little salad bar.  It was only $9.99.  And, wow, was it some of the best southern home cooking I've had in a long, long time.  Still dreamin' about that macaroni . . .

 

We had such a nice little visit.  It's always good to see family and we had a great time catching up with them.

 

We came home, watched the Bears lose ("Jay Cutler gave them at least eight points!  Eight!  He just gave them away!"), the Broncos win, and then watched one hell of a Cowboys game.

 

We may only have one official Cowboys fan in the house but we're all on TEAM DAK!  SEC boy. ;)

That's a wrap on a thoroughly exhausting - but so fun - three day weekend.