Getting ready for Thanksgiving

My parents, brother, and his wife are coming to visit us for Thanksgiving. They'll leave tomorrow and arrive late tomorrow night and stay until Sunday morning. We're very excited to see all of them. We'll be celebrating Christmas and birthdays at that time too since we won't be going home for Christmas (due to my work schedule).

For Thanksgiving, we have our new chaffing dishes out and ready to go on the buffet. I bought two 10 pound turkeys and Mark will cook them. We drove all over the place trying to find FRESH bay leaves, thyme twigs, sage leaves, and some other stuff. I sure hope it turns out well because the spices alone were more than each turkey cost individually! We had previously decided to outsource our Thanksgiving meal to HoneyBaked Ham, but we had my family make big requests for the delicious turkey Mark cooked last year. So, he's gonna do it again. Our sides we plan to make are green bean casserole, creamed potatoes, carrot souffle, and creamed spinach. Dessert is an AWESOME apple pie that I made last month from Southern Living's November issue. It took a bit of time to make, but was totally worth it. Also, I'm gonna make a sweet potato galette. That will be a first and I hope it turns out well.

We have been quite busy lately with home renovation projects. I keep holding off on pictures because I want a finished product photo of the before and after. We seem to be doing a little dab in each room at the moment so nothing is completely finished. But Mark has made those boxes like the one in the post below above the window, all above the fireplace too. He's not done yet, but it is looking really good. Also, we're painting our cabinets and the island we painted last month. I ordered new hardware and we've put a few pieces on one section of cabinets. We chose an antique white so it's not super gleaming white.

I promise photos soon. If nothing but of the new furniture. At least that is complete.