Cara's First Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was probably more exciting than past years. I mean last year was nice, because Mom was here and I was finally not sick anymore and we got to share our baby news, but this year is definitely top 3.

Our cute table setup :)

The decorations I put up this morning...
No joke, I was SUPER delayed this year

Mom didn't come out this year, which was a bummer, but since she had come out for my baby shower and for a little bit after Cara was born, it makes sense that she wanted to wait a little longer (plus the drive out from Mississippi this time of year is definitely not ideal) so that was the only bad part of November. We decided, though, to not let it get us down. We knew for our first holidays with Cara we wanted to stay home so that we could keep Cara on her regular schedule and not worry too much about where she'll be napping and moving her around too much. We decided to invite our closest siblings (for me it was Andy and Rachel, for Larry it was Skyler and Jena) to let them know we were doing a dinner and they were more than welcome to come. Lucky for us (we bought a 20 lb turkey before making any plans) they all agreed. I was excited to have Cara be exposed to so many people and have a few family members around in her element to help that socializing issue we've had, I think Larry was excited to see his brother haha.

Watching the Macy's Parade in the morning

Cara having a T-Giving nap

I LOVE cooking Thanksgiving dinner...I mean I make Larry do the turkey since I'm not a fan of taking all the insides out and he's SO good at washing it out and drying it off and all that stuff. Plus we got this new roaster that he wanted to test out, so it makes sense he'd do that while I worked on all the sides. I'm a huge believer in doing as much of it homemade as possible. We had the whole she-bang:

• Turkey
• Homemade mashed potatoes and gravy
• Stuffing
• Salad (w/tomatoes, croutons, parmesan, and Caesar dressing)
• Olives,
• Rolls
• Cheesecake
• Eggnog, Hot Cocoa, and a sprite lemonade drink mixture

We let those we invited know and said they are welcome to bring anything else they want. Andy & Rachel brought a green bean casserole; Skyler & Jena brought a really awesome veggie display and cranberry sauce. It was a great time with great people. We were going to Skype with Mom so that she could be part of it, but we ended up visiting so late that I didn't think she'd want to get on. It was so nice spending time with the family. Cara was pretty uneasy at first, she seems to cry when new people hold her, but then she warms up and is fine. Of course this was quite a few people and some very active kids, but after a while she loved everyone. She was smiley, she let Cailyn feed her dinner (for the most part), she kept smiling at Grayson (which was adorable), and by the time they were leaving Cara actually reached out for Jena to say goodbye. It was so sweet!

Everyone sitting and eating :) :)

Cailyn feeding Cara her dinner
(Since we all ate early)

Family picture, of course

I have to say for our first technically hosted Thanksgiving it went really well. We ate on time, the food was REALLY good, and everyone got along (no family holiday drama). I think we'll have to go out next year to people's homes though, just to make it even, but I definitely loved having it in our home this year. Especially for Cara's first one (she even got to try some of our foods and seemed to love them and get excited for more).

Anyways, hope everyone out there had a great Thanksgiving as well! Now we can start getting ready for Christmas (for those of us who haven't yet...definitely not me!).