Thanksgiving Break Recap

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  My break actually started on Wednesday, and the most monumental things I did that day were shop and bake a cheesecake for the big event.  Thursday started with the Macy's Parade on TV.  When I was a kid, I loved the parade not for the floats and balloons, but for the performances at the beginning before the parade gets to Herald Square.  And things haven't really changed that much.  We have lunch at the Farmhouse with my mom's side of the family, which is significantly larger than my dad's side.  Not everyone was home, but there was still a nice size crowd in attendance.  Here's a peak at the table...

And this wasn't even everything!

 Pecan, Egg Custard and Cheesecake...and I somehow missed the Pumpkin Pie!

 These cookie bars rocked my world...

We also took a little time to sing "Happy Birthday" to Bob.  Bob was my Grandpa Gus's best friend and has had that seat at family dinners for as far back as I can remember.  He's just another member of the family and it was great to be able to celebrate with him.

 This is the bucket that I ended up getting on Wednesday at Annie Laurie's.  Laurie was in and it's always so much fun to talk to her.  I've already shown you my cow creamer, but I didn't have the bucket where I could get a good picture.  (I know, buckets are terribly fascinating...)

But what is significant is that we needed a new bucket so that we could make this.

My family makes wine and it is awesome!  We don't have our own vineyard, but we do everything else ourselves.  It's just for our use, but it's a tradition that has been going on for many years and just keeps getting better with each year.  After dinner, we all settled in the living room and watched a little football.

I didn't get any pictures because I forgot both my cameras, but in the evening I went down to my cousins for even more family dinner.  I was totally stuffed by bedtime on Thursday, let me tell you.  I've mentioned before that I am not a Black Friday shopper, so I hung out around the house and watched movies and whatnot on Friday.  Saturday, I went over to Mom and Dad's because all the othe kids were gathering for a little of Dad's chili.

But Dad wasn"t the only cook in town...

Lu feels the same way about raw meat that I do, in that it's gross.  But, she lovingly prepared a hamburger for her beloved anyway.  Look how excited she was about it!

 And the finished product wasn't so bad either!

 Not to say that Boyfriend wasn't busy doing some cooking of his own.  Check out his cheesy breadsticks!

 Meanwhile, my mama was making cupcakes with Hershey's Chocolate Buttercream Icing!  There are no words for how I feel about these cupcakes.  I totally could have eaten the whole batch.

I know this has already been a super long post but I wanted to share a couple of pictures before I finished up.  Even though it has been cold and somewhat rainy here, I was amazed to see that Mom's knockout rose still had new blooms on it!  It was too pretty to pass up.

 And finally, because he missed being on the blog, here's a pic of my parents' evil cat, Shredder.  We have made our peace, but that's just so he has more time to stalk and torment Boyfriend!  He's more than happy when everyone goes home!  

It was a great weekend, just too short!  (Unlike this post!)