I'm planning my first Thanksgiving!!

I wanted to give everyone a heads up to stay tuned to see how successful or...not...my first attempt at hosting a Thanksgiving will be!

Jordan and I can't go home to Lodi because we don't want Ashton to travel during flu season without all his shots (and with the CA whooping cough epidemic going on) and we aren't going to Alabama because we are going in early December. We contemplated going to Atlanta with our besties Todd and Amber to Todd's aunts house but since it was a last minute idea, there was no room at the boarding place for Tater. Soooooooo, we're having Thanksgiving with the besties at our house!

Here's the menu:

Apple cider
Turkey (which is making me nervous but whatever...the nervousness comes from year after year of my mom panicking over the turkey. Therefore, panicking is the only thing I've learned how to do in that department).
Gravy
Mashed potatoes
Stuffing (out of the box cuz really, I can't make a turkey out of the box so let's make one thing easy at least!)
Homemade Macaroni & Cheese (a Fritz family tradition..weird, I know)
Coleslaw (from Chick-Fil-A which apparently is a Codling (todd and amber) tradition so I'm excited for yet another random thing that I don't have to cook :) We're all about the randomness as you can see with the mac&cheese. Always a fan.)

Dessert: I'm going all out
Pumpkin pie
Apple pie
Chocolate chip & peanut butter cookies (by request of Todd and Amber. I'm making at least 2 batches of these because we usually end up fighting over them)

If you find yourself wondering what happened to us if you don't hear from us for several days after this, we'll still sitting on the couch dying of fatness and trying to keep our arteries unclogged. :)

I'm also making zucchini bread (one loaf of traditional, and one loaf of chocolate chip zucchini bread with orange zest) so we'll have that as one of the little things to snack on before dinner...and hopefully as a partial breakfast when Amber and I get up at the butt-crack of 3am to drive to Charlotte, NC for shopping on Black Friday.

Yes, we are nuts. Don't ask me why we're doing this...except that I've never done BF shopping before and Charlotte is the closest place that has decent shopping (ya, can you believe there's nothing in the entire state of South Carolina? Awful.) and I'm tempted by amazing deals I am repeatedly promised.

Anywho, that's the plan over the next couple of days. I'll keep everyone updated on how it's all going. Today is the grocery shopping day. I'm trying to do it a few days early to avoid the crowd but I know it's still going to be awful so pray for me. Did I not tell you I'm striving to be Martha Stewart?? Without burning my house down preferably. I'll need to sleep for about 5 days straight when this is over. LoL! And somehow, with all the cooking and shopping and madness, I promise I'll still by up to my eyelashes in diapers! Duh.

If anyone wants any of the recipes of what I'm making, let me know! :)