Having a little boy has made the holiday season SO much fun! The week of Thanksgiving, we found out that we will be adding another BOY to our family!! We are over the moon for Walter to have a little brother; I cannot wait to see them grow up together! Since we decided to host our families for Thanksgiving, we had a fun gender reveal too!
We purchased a variety of colored glitter and small fillable glass ornaments.
I made a small paper funnel out of a magazine page and some tape. This made filling each ornament with glitter much easier!
I tied each ornament with this small gold ribbon instead of the wire hangers... only because I thought it looked nicer!
To keep the colored glitter hidden, we put each ornament in a small gold box with a lid. This way, we could hand each family member their own gift-box, and on the count of three, everyone could open theirs at the same time!
It's a boy! Cooper Charles Turley.
As Walter David was named for our family... Walter (my grandfather) David (Matts dad), it was important for us to do the same with our second son. Cooper is a family name on the Turley side, and also Matt's middle name. Charles is my dad's name, Walter's Pa who we love so much!
We prepared two turkeys for our feast and all of our guests also love to cook, so everyone brought a side! "My" turkey was cajun roasted in the oven and "Matt's" turkey was slow smoked on the grill.
This was our first time smoking a turkey and, man, was it a show stopper!
Posing with my turkey & my bun in the oven :-)
It was absolutely gorgeous on Thanksgiving this year, 65 and sunny! Luckily, we were able to enjoy this sunshine and ate on our deck, mid afternoon. We spanned 3 long tables together and covered them with craft paper. We also had about 25 people joining us (and we left town early the next morning) so we kept the clean up simple with paper products.
Each napkin and utensil was housed by this cute holder I found online. I used card stock that matched our table paper... click here for the free printable.
The table was decorated with low mason-jar floral arrangements and votive candles.
The kids table :-)
We started off the afternoon with a couple appetizers, baked brie and grilled oysters. With oven space limited, we chose these appetizers for their convenience- short bake time & the grill was already hot. (Our turkeys were resting on carving boards). Perfect timing.
Baked brie couldn't be easier- frozen puff pastry, brie, jam of your choice, and a little brown sugar. I placed the brie at the center of the puff pastry, topped one with peach preserves and the other with raspberry jam. Sprinkle on the brown sugar, wrap them up with the remaining pastry, and pop in the oven at 375 for 20-25 minutes! Serve hot with crackers and a knife.
Grilled oysters are also super easy. Place on a hot grate, cover them with a wet burlap bag and wait a few minutes till you hear them "pop!"... We placed them out on our picnic table accompanied by oyster crackers, hot sauce, and a shucking knife. YUM!
I found these cute coloring placemats at Target. They did their job & occupied the kids for a few minutes ;-)
We had quite the spread with all of our combined efforts!
After dinner... the reveal!
Cousins!
Dessert time! We had sour cream pie, apple pie, coconut-creme pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and tagalong cookies!
It was the perfect afternoon that soon turned evening... with tired kiddos and full bellies everyone headed home with grateful hearts. Each year I find more meaning to this special day- always finding more to be grateful for.
This year... we are especially grateful for our sweet Cooper Charles and his big brother Walter David.
xo,
Monica
No comments:
Post a Comment