Thanksgiving, Iowa Style

We spent a quiet holiday, just the three of us this year. We'd toyed around with getting together with our fabulous neighbors, but they have a week-old baby and we have a severe lack of space and serving dishes, so it worked out okay this way. And didn't even matter so much when Lucy peed on the floor under the table just as we were putting dishes of food out, either. (Still working on the potty star here).

The day started off slow and lazy, like many of our other days. My little Lucy hung around in a diaper through the baking of pies and the start of peeling potatoes and squash.
This is our "low-rent" dinner. I thought it looked pretty good, but Eric things there needed to be some casseroles. I tried to make a green-bean casserole a couple of years ago and failed entirely. No disasters here, though Eric cooked his own ham, mashed the potatoes, and made the gravy, the three likeliest things I would be able to ruin.
Since the potty star is a work-in-progress, every time Lucy makes it she gets a happy sticker on her chart and a chocolate. Since she had three successes before dinner, served right at nap time, her appetite was less than voracious. She sampled a couple of sides and finished her mashed potatoes. No ham-hangover for this kid!
Cheers little (growing) family!
Here is my crowning achievement of the day - two beautiful, delicious, homemade pies. Admittedly I did not make the apple pie crust, but I've tried before and the store-bought ones always taste so much better. The chocolate cream pie is from scratch with a homemade chocolate graham-cracker crust and was fantastic. It was a toss-up which one was better. I had a slice of each and with every bite the pie I was eating was my favorite. Lucy loved the chocolate but wouldn't even hear of a bite of apple. Eric even tried holding her down and shoving some apple pie down her throat, but lost the battle. She doesn't know what she's missing!We hope everyone had a wonderful day!