Thanksgiving 2011- Part I

Our Thanksgivings are always full of family, friends and food and this year was no exception.  The real exception this year was the fact that we actually remembered to document it photographically!  Go us.  That does, however, mean that we have a lot more pictures, requiring multiple posts.  Lucky readers.  We started Thanksgiving at Matt's dad's.

We actually rolled into KC at a reasonable hour.  Once the kids were in bed, I set to work on the pies.  I made three that night.

Thanksgiving Day!  I finished the pies that morning and then we had a little time to play before getting started on the main event- the turkey!

For the past few years, we've been deep frying the turkey.  It is so awesomely wonderful.  I love it.  And I finally have a picture of the process!  This is Matt, Audrey, and Uncle Andy waiting for the oil to heat up.  Thanks to warm weather and a nice little wind breaker, we were able to heat the oil hotter than we had in previous years.

Lowering him in!

Carefully supervising the cooking process.

Pretty little helper.

Turkey's done!  Or is it???

About the moment Matthew realized the turkey was in fact, NOT done, and the "broken" thermometer that wasn't registering wasn't actually broken, but rather wasn't registering because it started at 140 degrees Fahrenheit and the turkey hadn't actually made it to that temperature yet.  Back into the fryer he went!

We can finally eat!  The double frying method actually made the turkey quite most and the skin pretty crispy.  A happy accident, I suppose.  Matthew has decided they will implement the double-frying technique every year now.

All this food for me?!

Charlotte and her typical picture pose these days.

Her eyes!  I caught them!

Audrey was not letting Charlotte nap, so Charlotte decided to bring her blanket downstairs and ultimately fell asleep camped out on the kitchen floor.  She slept like this until we headed out for Part II!