Our Alabama Thanksgiving

If you could only taste how good the food is at our annual Thanksgiving Dinner at my parents home...it really is good enough to 'slap your mama'. Southern food is delicious but it is a good thing it only comes around once a year or the obesity rate would be off the charts and it is nearly there now in the South.  Our Thanskgiving is a time of family gathering, eating, men helping to clean then napping/ watching football, fishing, women cleaning more, children running ceaslessly and then we have a nice long hay ride and warm up to a nice cup of Russian tea. The country is nice and having a loving family is amazing.
The dinner is enough to feed a small town but the leftovers are especially good. It is all homemade, nothing from a box except, I learned how to make a  box dressing for Mark b/c he prefers it over the Southern style cornbread. We have 2-3 turkeys, 2 large pans of southern dressing with gravy (optional), 1 ham, 2 sweet potato casseroles, 10 lbs of buttery creamy mashed potatoes, 2 squash caseroles, potato salad, turnip greens, 2 hashbrown casseroles, lady peas, congelled salad, homemade yeast rolls, homemade bread with ribbon cane syrup, deviled eggs, spinach salad with poppyseed dressing, green beans, and a marinated vegetable cold salad. Then there is a seperate dessert table of ambosia with or w/o coconut, chocolate pie, ginger cookies, pound cakes, cheesecakes, pumpkin pie, assorted cookies galore.  I forgot to mention the appetizer table before the dinner starts but you get the hint! Enjoy the pics and again I forgot my camera but I attempted to use my mother's camera on manual settings..I do much better with big DSLR cameras than point and shoots but here are a few images to savor until next year.  If you like what you see you are more than welcome to join in!

Here are the kids helping me prepare the squash casserole.

Susan (Mark's GF), Mark, Lisa (Single, available) , Uncle Ed & Aunt Vonnette McWilliams

Mark McWilliams and Susan

Robert and Linda Suttle (my brother's in-laws)

Jason (my brother), Lisa, Sutton & Emmie Latham Linda, Robert Suttle

Sutton,Emmie, Tennyson, Asher & Braxton..we missed you Piper!

Mark (35), Jennifer (37), Braxton (8), Asher (6), & Tennyson (3)



My mother got a rare photo of me. I am usually behind the camera!

My parents got Mark and a MUCH needed Garmin.  He's brilliant but VERY directionally challenged!

And yes, this is my 8 year old son driving the gator all over the farm. For some reason it seemed okay whenI was his age but wow...payback is coming quicker thanI anticipated.

Beginning our hay ride down our 5 mile dirt road.

Aunt Vonnette and Uncle Ed captured in the hay.

All the grandkids take turns riding with my wonderful daddy!

Atop this hillside was where we had planned to build our home...sometimes plans change for a reason.

My pretty and single cousin.

Rule of life  #???...You're never to old to jump on hay bails but sometimes there are consequenses to age!

What else can you say but..Isn't that pretty.  Thank you God!

Uncle Mike & Aunt Marilyn Colson

Matthew and Elizabeth "Lizzy Bear" came by after Matthew's rugby game. Elizabeth was our former babysitter. I introduced them almost one year ago and things are going well. I enjoy matchmaking.