Thanksgiving, 2009 #2

Brad's family is really good about celebrating holidays after the fact. Since they have three boys, they've found that it's easier if those three boys spend actual holidays with the girls' families, and then the following weekend together as Mehaffeys. As a married-in, I so much appreciate that stress-free solution.

Also, since all three of the boys and their prospective girls live in Nashville, they decided that it's more convenient for the parents to travel down South than for the 6 kids to go up North. For our commencement of a Nashville Mehaffey Thanksgiving, Brad and I hosted the meal for the family. Yep, you heard that right, Brad and I hosted the family Thanksgiving. How grown-up is that?? I was a little nervous since our kitchen is about the size as my office cubicle, but we somehow made it work.

We turned our dining room table sideways, and added our card table to the end of that to have enough room for all of us. (Classy, huh?) Which turned out to be a great idea for the cooking, too, because we used that card table in place of counter space. Don cooked the turkey in the laundry closet, and the girls were completely pushed out of the kitchen when it was cutting time as all of the Mehaffey boys crowded in to gathere around their dad and learn the art of turkey carving. But overall, Heather and I totally proved ourselves worthy of the Mrs. Mehaffey title, as we split the meal with the Momma Mrs. Mehaffey. You won't even believe how much food we cooked. Let me just tell you.

Turkey, dressing, cornbread stuffing, noodles (upon Brad's insistence and thanks to the Amish people at the Farmers' Market), mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, corn casserole, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, a relish tray, grape salad, cranberry sauce and crescent rolls. And we had both fudge pie and pumpkin pie for dessert. Oh yeah, I totally had my hand in that. I even baked pies!

Seriously, we loaded the table with all of the food, sat in our seats, and held hands to pray. But before we could give thanks for all of our numerous blessings, I glanced up and down the table(s) at our feast, and yelled out "What?? Look at this! We are totally freaking awesome!!" and Heather and I high-fived across the table. Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I was pretty darn proud of ourselves. For this anti-cooking amateur, I crossed over a huge hurdle that day. I couldn't hear "Mmmmm..." "Yum!" "This is great!" "Wow! So delicious!" or "You girls did amazing!" nearly enough. We were all beaming with pride.

One very great thing about hosting Thanksgiving dinner, is that you get to keep (most of) the leftovers! And believe me, even eight grown adults couldn't consume all of those fixin's! We had so much extra turkey, that Chester even got to enjoy a piece! Now, as a general rule, Chester does not enjoy the luxury of people food. But all the other dogs were getting some (oh, I haven't told you yet? Yes, there were other dogs), so it was only fair. I do believe he loved it!

Each year on Thanksgiving, we pose for the Mehaffey Family Photo that will accompany the annual Christmas letter. This year, Heather finally got to be part of it since she and Matthew are officially married and she's a legit Mehaffey! (Pay no attention to the clock in the background of the following pictures. Don't judge us. It could be referring to the morning.)

We also took the opportunity to take pictures of each mini-family and then a picture of each couple with their dog, since each couple had their own dog... Here's Don and Elaine with their new schnauzer puppy, Buddy!

Here are Brad and me and our little family photo with Chester.

Married Matthew and Heather and their baby girl, Kate.

Jeremy and Madison with his new (4 year old) dog, Abigail (Abby).

Of course, we had to take a picture of all of the proud Mehaffey Men with their dogs. Yes, the heights of the boys and then of the dogs is very humorous. I totally agree.

We could not resist trying to get a picture of all four dogs together. You can tell that "Grandpa" has a bag of treats off to their right. Abby (who loves food enough to steal a cinnamon roll right off of our kitchen counter!) couldn't wait. Then, when we got Abby settled, Kate was bored and decided that if she had to sit there and not move, then she was going to lay down. I think that the "cousin" picture (well, Buddy is technically an "uncle" even though he's the youngest) is absolutely adorable.

Surprisingly, having 8 people and 4 dogs in our house for 3 days wasn't nearly as chaotic as it could have been. Sure, Scattergories did get a little bit out of hand, but we had a great time spent together. I always count our family as one of the biggest blessings in our life. Definitely a great way to spend Thanksgiving.

Complete Mehaffey Thanksgiving Photo Album