Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving is always a pretty lazy day around our house and this year was no exception. The weather was absolutely beautiful, clear skies and low 70's. David tried his hand at cinnamon rolls and boy, did they turn out delicious! I usually don't like cinnamon rolls but these were sooo good and were perfect for our Thanksgiving breakfast. Savannah spent most of the day playing outside with the neighbor kids and Xander, who has "found" Star Wars spent most of the day inside watching Star Wars movies and playing with his Star Wars guys. He has been carrying around the DVD movies and his favorite Star Wars guys, Darth Maul and Darth Vader...why am I not surprised?

David playing with Noah.

Xander and his Star Wars guys.

Savannah and our next door neighbor Cali.


It has always been a Schaeffer family tradition to have turkey throughout Thanksgiving Day. I can still remember waking up on Thanksgiving morning to the wonderful aroma of cooked turkey, thanks to my dad who would get up in the middle of the night to prepare the turkey (in the tradition of my grandpa Gabe) and put it in the oven so that it would be ready as soon as we all woke up. David and I have tried to carry on that tradition in our own home and the past few years of middle of the night turkey preparation have made me appreciate my dad's sacrifice to get that turkey in the oven...it is extremely hard to get up at 2:00 am. Unfortunately for us we have not had much success in cooking our turkeys and last year was the worst - we had to just trash the whole bird. So this year we decided not to chance it and David just cooked the turkey according to the directions that came with it. We also bypassed the early morning preparation and started cooking it mid-morning. So, no early morning turkey this year which was a bummer but at least the turkey turned out just fine.


We gathered around the table for our Thanksgiving dinner around 5:30. The kids had been snacking most of the day so they weren't that hungry and didn't eat much. But all of the food was so delicious and David and I stuffed ourselves! The turkey tasted wonderful and we were lucky to have some of our yummy bleu cheese spread for it...mmmmmmmm! We had yams AND sweet potatoes because David and I like them prepared two different ways, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, Martinellis, all the traditional Thanksgiving fare. It was a nice Thanksgiving but next year we hope to spend it with some of our family.



David makes the best pumpkin pie but only he and Savannah were able to eat some. I was too stuffed but Savannah told me that, although she was stuffed too, she had one spot left in her belly and it was for pumpkin pie.