Givin' thanks and gettin' full!

Woke up and worked my butt off baking a batch of pumpkin pie cookies topped with maple icing for Ethan's family in the spirit of Thanksgiving. :D

One of the things I love most about Thanksgiving is having the opportunity to enjoy being with my family, free of interruption. Given that fact and the fact that I'm kind of a photo-fanatic, it's ironic that I have absolutely zero photographic representations of my beautiful family on Turkey Day.

In lieu of such, please enjoy our table. My mom and I threw this together with little to no effort, very last minute. But since my mom is an artist (though she is too modest to call herself such), it turned out beautifully!

Not pictured: amazing food and my amazing family. We shared a lot of laughs. Table Topics, anyone?

My mom has recently taken up metal embossing. She made a couple of monograms and framed them for my grandmothers' place settings.

See how cute?

Yep. And within the next couple of days I'll have more photos of her adorable work - I'm so excited to share!

And if I may brag for a minute about my caramel apple cheesecake (based on this recipe - I opted for a homemade graham cracker-walnut crust instead)... Look at that - no splits in the cake top! So proud of myself!

Minutes before serving, I topped the cheesecake with a warm caramel apple sauce.

Oh, and here is Sonny during our Thanksgiving dinner. This is where he spends most of his time now: in a shallow box from a case of water bottles. He's thrifty. I've taught him well.

I hope all of my lovely readers had an equally lovely Thanksgiving. Tell me, what was your favorite dish? :P