Thanksgiving Setup

This year, I insisted in hosting Thanksgiving at our house because I do not like to get out of practice when it comes to Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  My friend Renee, whose son Ryan is in Michael's class and we are MOPS discussion group leaders together, wanted to do Thanksgiving at her house, which would have been logistically better as she has a large dining room, a large table, and a double oven.

Oh, to have a double oven.

However, I didn't do Thanksgiving last year.  This year was an "ON" year for me.  So off we went to brine our turkey and love Alton Brown for giving us a great recipe to make a great turkey!

I took some house pictures!

I found on pinterest orange tulips for decoration, which I loved:

The house was rearranged a bit:

To accomodate this setup:

 I borrowed this foldable round table from my mentor mom from MOPS and I fell in love with it:

They don't sell collapsible round tables anymore in stores.  Just rectangular ones.  I LOVED this little collapsible one and will be on the looking for more like it because I loved how it fit in the space.

Appetizer table:

Table setting:

 Michael being super helpful.  NOT:

Michael has started learning what sarcasm is.  He told me the other day, "Mom, you don't mean that.  You are being sarcastic."  And he was right on point!

Sorry there's no food on the tables!  Once we got to eatin, we got to eating!  I can't believe we didn't take pictures of us sitting down to eat.  Or eating.  I forget sometimes.

This was the most prepared I have ever been to entertain.  I wasn't stressed out or frazzled.  I wasn't doing things at the last minute. And check out my kitchen.  IT WAS CLEAN.  So thankful for my friend who brought mashed potatoes, that really took a load off of my hands and dish work!

My D50 has been giving me lots of haze in pictures - can't figure out why!  Or rather, don't have the time to figure out why.  I need to pull my filter off and see if that's what's doing it.  Basically troubleshoot.  Because as it stands, I cannot take this camera to Europe.  It drives me up the wall.  Don't you love my orange room? WTH?

P