Our Extended Weekend of Thanks

5:30 came waaaaay to early this morning.  The only time I got up that early the past 5 days was on Friday and it was so Mom and I could go shopping, so of course I popped right out of bed.

I took Wednesday off to get things ready for the weekend.  Eric was up early frying turkeys to deliver to the guys at the stores.  He fried 6 before 10AM.  Shortly after he left, Mom and Dad rolled into town and we started on some of the sides we could pre-make for Thursday. It was then I realized I had not thought about making dinner, so we opted for dinner and a movie.....Catching Fire to be exact!  It was soooooooo good!  Seriously the shortest 2.5 hour movie I have ever seen!

1.  Catching Fire!
2. Love my SIL!
3. Eric and I on Iron Bowl Day.
4.  Mom and I with her new BFF (Hollow).
5. Some of my favorites!
6. Hawk got to go on his first ducking hunting trip of the year on Thanksgiving and it wore him out!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my parents and Eric's family that included an obscene amount of food.  Never underestimate Southern women when it comes to food.  We hosted Thanksgiving at our house so I had the necessities covered (hash brown casserole, stuffing-regular and oyster, green bean casserole, rolls, sweet potatoes, broccoli salad, etc) and asked his Mom and Grandma to bring a couple of dishes.  They did that x5.  In addition to the 2 turkeys I had Eric fry, they brought a turkey AND and ham, plus casserole, plus dressing (that we requested), plus gravy, plus Mac and Cheese, plus collard greens, plus desserts. I am pretty sure you could have filled up 2 plates with a small scoop of nothing but sides if you wanted to try them all.  Let's just say we've been eating leftovers for 4 days and my fridge is still completely full.

1. Our beautiful centerpiece from my grandparents! with the cutest little photo-bomber ever in the background!
2. Our turkeys in their whirlpool bath.  Eric forgot to defrost the turkeys, so we attempted a quick thaw-out method on Thursday morning.  Luckily Eric's grandma came to the rescue with 2 non-frozen turkeys.
3.  Porch fnuction #492,340: Thanksgiving dinner table!
4. The fry-master at work.
5. This was leftover plate #1. All of my subsequent leftover plates have looked almost identical.
6. Beautiful fried birds!
7 and 8. Our Thanksgiving spread!  The cold dishes and desserts were outside because we ran out of counter space. 

Mom and I made the decision a few weeks ago that we would NOT participate in Thanksgiving Day shopping.  I think it's ridiculous to take people away from their families on Thanksgiving, I don't care how much you plan on paying them as compensation.  However, Friday morning was a different story.  Our original plan was to head out at 5AM, but my alarm decided to go off silently and I didn't wake up til 5:45AM, but we were on our way around 6:30 and had a VERY successful day of shopping! After we powered through for nearly 8 hours of shopping (never stepping foot in a Walmart...booyah!) which included our traditional Chik-fil-a and Sonic stops we headed home and crashed.

Saturday was the Iron Bowl, which turned out to be one of the most exciting football games ever.  Seriously.  And I am not just saying that because I live in the state of Alabama.  The game literally came down to the last second, and what happened at the end was insane.  We had Alabama and Auburn fans at our house which meant there was a ton of whooping and hollering and lots of disbelief on both sides.  In case you missed it, here's the last play of the game with the Auburn radio call.

It was just a tad bit exciting.  If you want some entertainment, Google "iron bowl 2013 reactions" and watch videos of Auburn fans losing their minds. This was the reaction at our house.

They say pictures are worth 1,000 words.  I think my favorite is the bottom right where our two AU friends are hugging it out while AJ McCarron and his GF and hugging on tv...LOL.

Mom and Dad headed back early Sunday morning and we took the day off.  I sent Eric to get a Christmas tree since he was heading that direction to go hunting, and this is it's current state:

My goal is to have it up by the end of the week, and decorated by the end of the weekend.  Wish me luck!