We celebrated the big day at Jer's parents house, which is simply the perfect place to have any party! My parents and sister Alieson came in town to celebrate with us, which was a special treat. It is rare to get to celebrate holidays with two sides of our family at one time and it was so nice. My other sister Meredith and her fiance Cory are getting married next weekend, so they skipped out this year to stay home and work on the wedding. We missed them a lot, but we will all be together next weekend, so that made it better. I spent all day yesterday cooking and running wedding errands since Jer was home to watch Colin. In what I am sure will be the most re-told story of the year, I had to make FOUR chocolate pies due to the fact that I ruined the first two. Our family chocolate pie is a much loved tradition and this was my first year to make it instead of my mom. I practiced it earlier this year and was ready to go. I was making two pies and I got completely finished, including made from scratch crust (which had to chill first and then bake beforehand) and filling. Both pies were made and stunning when I went to whip up the egg whites into meringue. I spooned the sugar and vanilla into the egg whites, whipped them up, poured them into the pies and THEN tasted my fingertip....I had not been paying attention and used SALT instead of sugar in the meringue. I kid you not. I poured a salt lick over my precious pies. It was a sloppy salty mess and I knew the egg whites were taking too long to set up, but I was not paying attention and just poured it on the pies. It would not come off and both pies were ruined! I had a complete and total meltdown...I was beside myself! Jer tried to remind me that we would look back at that moment and laugh during holidays down the road and he is right...but there was no consoling me at the time! UGH!! I ended up making them all over again because I could NOT handle missing chocolate pie on Thanksgiving, not to mention that I would never have lived the story down if I had not produced a pie. :-) I made them all over again and they were great, thank goodness. What a mess! After that fiasco, my family arrived at my house and we all settled in for chili and cornbread that I made earlier in the day. We had a great time hanging out and chatting and Colin had a blast running around and showing off for his family. He had a whole room full of family to laugh at him, which he found highly entertaining!
Today dawned very early and my mom, sister and I started cooking. We made tons of stuff to take to Thanksgiving. I made my sweet potatoes with pecan strudel topping and brown butter mashed potatoes to take with my pies. My mom made her dressing, seven layer salad, corn souffle, ham sauce, and more stuff that I can't think of at this late hour. It was a major feast! We took everything over to Jer's parents house by 11:00am and they had tons of appetizers and wine for us to start with. They made the turkey and ham and Jer's mom made from scratch pumpkin pie! It was awesome!! There was so much food there that I could pass out just thinking about it. Colin ate a ton of food...easily the most I have seen him eat at one time. He loved it all! We ate ourselves to death and then hung out on the patio relaxing while Colin took a nap. We caught some of the Cowboys game and then finally made it home at about 5:00. Colin had a light dinner and was asleep by 7:30. It was just a wonderful day all the way around and I am now ready for the official start of the Christmas season!! Here are some pictures from our day...this is me and my sister attempting a self-portrait. We are such dorks!
This is my daddy and Alieson at the dinner table.
Alieson cracking me up...I told her that this picture was going directly to the blog. :-)
Colin loving his huge feast! 
The grandmothers cooking and harassing Colin. :-)
This is one of the out-takes from our family photo shoot in the backyard. I am saving the good ones for our Christmas cards, but this one is sweet. If Colin had been looking up, it would have been perfect for the card. I love my boys!
Mama and Colin lounging on the couch...getting ready to eat!
2 comments:
OMG your so funny! Sounds like something I'd do to the pies!! Glad it all turned out and yall' had a fab day!
I'm glad you redeemed yourself with the second batch of chocolate pies! Is your skin really as perfect as it looks in every picture? If so, I'm jealous and what is your secret?!?
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