Thanksgiving in Houston

This year for Thanksgiving,  we had just our little family with Mom and Dad Meldrum and it was such a delight, as long as you don't mind making all the food yourself!  Good thing I love to cook and it was perfect because Mom and Dad did all of the entertaining of the children while I cooked and Hadley took a 3 hour nap in the morning which was perfect so I could cook without a little helper.

Here is Allie helping Grandpa make gumdrop and raisin turkeys which he used to make when he was a kid on Thanksgiving.  Allie loved it, but mostly loved eating the extras!

We put Grandma in charge of making the sweet potatoes and she did a mighty fine job

 Allie dancing with the Thanksgiving day parade dancers.  Any time there is music on, she is dancing or singing away.

Mike got out his harmonica that was his Grandpa Pagel's and Allie gave us show after show on her little step stool.

Here was our Thanksgiving Dinner Table:

-Turkey (brined in an orange apple cider brine)
-Home made rolls
-Sourdough rye stuffing
-Sweet potato casserole
-Mashed Potatoes
-Gravy (good gravy!)
-Cranberry Sauce
-Green Bean Casserole
-Chocolate Pumpkin Ice Box Pie

We also used Great Aunt Annabell's China which I inherited from my Grandma Shaw!  It is such a beautiful pattern and I love using it!

 Grandma and Allie using the s&p for microphones singing Rudolf.
I know what you are thinking about the Christmas decorations, but we were having Christmas 2 days later with Mike's family so we had to get ready for it so Allie would understand. :)

After dinner was over and tummies were full, we headed over to the Galleria for Christmas carols, bringing in Santa, turning on the Christmas lights and FIREWORKS!

There is a hotel that overlooks the plaza and they have a balcony decorating contest.  One of the rooms had a bubble machine that looked like snow falling, so fun!  It was pretty warm, once we got out of the wind.

 Allie and Hadley both loved the fireworks!  They can officially be a part of my family. :)

This firework show lasted like 10 minutes, it was awesome and all set to Christmas music.  It could almost be better than 4th of July because of the music!  It was an awesome Thanksgiving!