Non-Traditional Thanksgiving 2011

My sister and I are the pickiest eaters on the planet, hands down.  Neither of us enjoys traditional Thanksgiving fare like turkey or dressing.  When we would all gather with my Mom’s extended family many years ago, she always made sure someone was making a ham (or she just made it herself), plain mashed potatoes (none with cream cheese or sour cream included were acceptable), and normal bread.  That’s about all we would eat.  Desserts were a little easier, but don’t even think about putting a pie with meringue in front of us or cheesecake, pumpkin anything, or oatmeal raisin cookies. Stick with plain chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, etc.  Leslie would go for peanut butter desserts, but I didn’t (and still don’t) like them. 

All that to say, when our large extended family started celebrating with individual parts our Mom ditched the entire traditional food idea and went for something we all like:  steaks, baked potatoes, corn on the cob, and bread.  I used to hate Thanksgiving because I hated the food…now, bring it on!

We had Thanksgiving with my parents and Leslie and Zach on Wednesday night at our house.  It was really fun to have everyone in our house!  Mom brought all of the food over and Leslie and I did desserts…nothing with meringue or pumpkin was anywhere near our kitchen!  Dad grilled the steaks while we had baked potatoes, corn on the cob, bread, shrimp and cocktail sauce, and chips and salsa in the kitchen.

I promise I did help get the food ready, but someone had to be behind the camera as well!  Our house isn’t large enough to host many family events, but since it was just the 6 adults and my two kids it was perfect.

My Dad provided Ryan with his first bite of shrimp ever and he loved it! I won’t touch shrimp for money (I’ve tried!) or anything else you might think to bribe me with.  Ain’t happenin’.

Stephen and Zach especially enjoyed the pre-meal snacks.  Stephen looks like he got caught digging into something he wasn’t supposed to have!

During dinner, Zach needed a steak knife and since all of our small ones were in use, he grabbed the largest on we have!  He said it got the job done, however.

Paige definitely enjoyed the  bread-Funny thing is, Leslie used to eat her pieces of bread exactly like Paige is doing.  I’ve said it 1,000 times before but if I hadn’t witnessed her birth, I’d swear she belonged to my sister.

Ryan wasn’t much of a steak fan (I think it’s too much work for this lazy little eater!), but he loved everything else.  He crashed hard that night and woke up not feeling so hot the next day.

Unfortunately, we didn’t pose for any family pictures.  I honestly think we forgot about it.  So, this is as close to a whole group picture as we got.  Pictures or not, we had a great time and we’re very thankful for family!