The Crazy Pink House: Still Recovering

I know I'm comin in a couple days late here but it took me all of yesterday to recover from the turkey day festivities.(and feeling like an overstuffed turkey myself)
I had some issues pop up that I sure wasn't expecting,like my dishwasher going kaput,my garbage disposal went the same route,and to top it off my oven was acting up.I didn't think I was going to pull off dinner for 16 people but with the help of hubby and my always handy father-in-law I DID it!(dishwasher is still dead but hey I've done dishes by hand all my life so no biggie)
We got the house cleaned up,I prepared and cooked for 2 days and it was wonderful if I do say so myself.(trust me it hasn't always turned out that great!)I tried a new sweet potato casserole recipe that got raves,(even from my 4 yr old which SHOCKED me)I also strayed from my tried and true stuffing recipe this year and I made Paula Deens recipe.YUM! It has cornbread in it which I normally don't care much for but it was a winner.I must say I'm still partial to the old bread stuffing tho.
My parents came which was wonderful due to the fact that my mom fell and broke 3 ribs less than a week ago and boy oh boy they've had a rough year.So many things to be thankful for this year.
All in all the day was good,no one got food poisoning,my kids didn't throw food while the guests were here,no arguments amongst family members,and nothing burned so I'm happy.
It got me thinking about the very 1st Thanksgiving that I ever had on my own.It was the 1st after hubby and I were married,my oldest was less than a year old and we lived in a tiny (but very nice)condo.I SO wanted to impress everyone on his side of the family and prove that I could do it but I had no CLUE how to even begin to make that bird.
I called my sister and she told me to use the big cooking bags and I knew her turkeys were always good so I went with that. I recall that YES,I DID leave the neck and giblets inside when I cooked it.Hey,no one ever mentioned that!!! We found it after the bird was cooked and hubby and I had an hour long discussion on how in the world they could have made a mistake like that and left the HEAD in!!! I swear it looked like the head to me!Anyway I cooked the bird like my cookbook said which ended up being 6-7 hours.Well,no one ever told me that cooking bags take less than HALF the time to cook the bird in.Yep,you can imagine how dried up and fried that thing was.I remember seeing hubby trying to lift it out of the pan and it literally fell apart! Oh gosh,they ate it tho but I recall having alot of leftovers that year!
This was my 13th year doing it now and I've learned along the way,I still screw up but I've always enjoyed doing it and I hope to able to do it for a long time to come.
I hope you all had a wonderful time with your family and friends and made some new memories to treasure,I know that I did.
Here are a few pics.
The dining room table,I ususally use a gold tablecloth for Thanksgiving but couldn't find it this year