Thanksgiving is messy business…

if you invite us over for dinner.  But just the same, Maria was kind enough to adopt us into their family for Thanksgiving this year.  With moving up in the air and a scheduled trip to Utah in December we had decided to stay home for turkey.  Then I wondered why in the world would I make a big dinner for really just Carl and I since Crew and Jax like almost nothing on the feast menu.  Maria’s invitation gave me an excuse to make one of my family’s favorite holiday dishes:

Candied Yams

2 1/2 lg. cans sweet potatoes

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter – softened

1 tsp. vanilla

Dump all the above ingredients into a bowl.

Mash/mix it all together using an electric mixer, then pour into a butter-greased 9×13 pan.

Next, mix the topping.  Again, I use the electric mixer:

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup flour

1/3 cup butter – softened

1 cup chopped pecans

Sprinkle on top of the yams and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Not only do they taste so good but they’ll make your house smell amazing while they bake.

We arrived at Maria’s to find the kitchen buzzing with conversation and last minute feast preparations.  So I took a minute to look around.

Isn’t this table beautiful?  Seriously, I was taking notes on Maria’s decorating all night long.  She is crazy talented!

She really thought of every detail.  She even covered the kid’s table with butcher paper and made colorable place mats.  Even the crayon cans were covered to match.  Like I said, I was taking notes.

Courtney, Sierra and Callie all teamed up to entertain my kids and I was able to eat every bite of my delicious dinner.  But without his second nap Milo became more and more fussy as the night went on until he finally passed out in my arms.  I put him down in a quiet room and went downstairs for a game of Nertz.  Woot woot! 20 minutes later he woke up.  Ugh!  But seriously, Milo is still so wonderfully tempered.  Even when he’s miserable he’s better than my other two as babies.  I mean, the poor kid is a teething mess right now and still manages to smile and laugh and play.  But nonetheless, his nose runs which makes him cough which makes him gag which makes him… yup.  Throw up.  And that he did.  All over Maria’s kitchen floor.  I stripped Milo down to his diaper while Maria cleaned up the mess and I said a thousand apologizes before we all settled down for more fun.

I had such a great time talking with everyone.  I actually had a full night of wonderful grown up conversation because Crew and Jax had disappeared literally hours earlier to the upstairs game room for video game-o-rama.  But all good things must eventually come to an end and by 8pm Milo was so tired that we decided to call it a night.  Carl went to retrieve our nerds from upstairs when suddenly Jax started howling.  I assumed it was because the games had been turned off but when Jax waddled down the stairs screaming my chin hit the floor.  He had peed, no, soaked his pants while siting on their nice sofa!  Apparently the game was too intense to bother with a potty break.  I started packing up the car while Carl tried to help Maria clean up the mess.  I mean, really!  Who wants to invite us over after a night like this?!  It was actually almost funny.  The blogging post ideas started running through my head…

We managed to get everyone home safely albeit shirtless or pantless and still made out with some fantastic left overs.  I’m just sad I didn’t really get to thank Maria and Stan for such a great night during all the hysterics.  I hope they can forgive us and our messes knowing that a sizable gift is definitely in order to say thanks for another great Thanksgiving!

Hope your Thanksgiving was just as memorable and a lot less messy!