Our Thanksgiving Feast

Our original plan was to spend Thanksgiving with Grandma & Grandpa Powell, Uncle Spencer and the Hensen family in Missoula. We decided that we could not risk Landon getting sick. He is doing so well and it can be easy to forget that he is still extremely vulnerable to any respiratory illness like RSV and the flu. He has not started his series of RSV shots yet and we decided we cannot take the chance of him coming down with something. We also heard that there are several cases of whooping cough in Missoula. Yikes. No thank you. We have spent plenty of time in the hospital with Landon. So we stayed in Helena, I cooked and invited my dad over to join us. Even though my dad "does not travel on Thanksgiving", Addi talked him into it!

I was wide awake at 4:30 am. After Landon fell back asleep after eating I was unable to stop thinking. So around 5:30 am I got out of bed, made coffee, turned on my Christmas music and finished up making Pumpkin Pull-Apart Bread for Thanksgiving breakfast. I had made the dough the day before, but there was still so much to do in prepping this bread. I found this recipe on a food blog and the picture was enough to make me attempt this recipe. It was way too complicated and time consuming for my liking. I mean, "browning butter", WHAT? If the recipe has more than 10 steps and language other than stir or whisk I usually do not attempt it! I was very nervous that it would not turn out. And you cannot start out Thanksgiving with a failure. Not when Dylan says for weeks, "Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love Thanksgiving. I cannot wait for Thanksgiving". I do not want to let him down when it means so much to him!! The recipe calls for the dough to rise a few different times. Each time I waited for it to rise, it really never "doubled in size". While it was baking I whipped up some easy Monkey Bread, just in case!

To my surprise both gooey, pull-apart breads turned out delicious!

Our Thanksgiving meal was very traditional - a big 'ol turkey, Bacon-Braised Green Beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade rolls, Sausage & Apple Stuffing and apple & pumpkin pie. Addison was a big help. She kneaded the rolls, made the pies and stuffed the turkey!

My helper.

We took a break for a kiss!

Kneading the roll dough.

Putting the finishing touches on the apple pie.

Talking to Papa.

My First Thanksgiving

It was a wonderfully mellow day and our meal was delicious! We have so much to be thankful for.

With a big help from Papa, Dylan and Addi put together Landon's crib. In the move we lost most of the screws. We had to go track down the right ones. Not as easy at it sounds. With a few minor adjustments with a drill it is all ready for Landon!!