Children and Pies. What more do you need? How about Super Cuddly Children and Amazingly Delicious Pies. Yep, that's what I need.

Seven of us DCers took a Thanksgiving road trip to Nashville and we stayed with our cousins, Julee and Nate.  They have four children and one on the way!  Cameo and Rich and their families were also there for the weekend. Making a grand total of 13 adults and 8.5 children.

It was one long, grand slumber party.

And I'm pretty sure everyone ended up with at least one of the following pictures:

Did we have children magnets in our pockets?

I never appreciated gaining five pounds more in my life.  Every bite of this Thanksgiving feast was worth it.  

We ate these sweet potatoes and these mashed potatoes.  It was potato heaven.  Seriously, every potato that has ever lived hopes to end up in these two recipes when they die.

The pistachio salad was a dream, the cranberry sauce was sweet and tart and citrusy, the stuffing was my usually fav (if the meal only consisted of this stuffing, I would have been completely satisfied), and the turkey - oh the turkey!  I think it was the first time I realized what turkey was supposed to taste like.  I kept asking Nate what his secret was and he said he had no idea what he was doing, he just stuck it in a bag and hoped for the best.  We later found out that he gave it a loving salt massage and whispered sweet nothings to it before sticking it in the bag.  I guess that's the secret.

Now, let's take a moment to talk about the pies.

Yes, there were 16 pies (plus a secret surprise paper pi) and yes there were only 13 adults and 8.5 children.

But let me tell you, this was the miracle pie year.  People who did not like pumpkin were raving about the pumpkin.  People who hated pecan were begging for the recipe.  People who only liked graham cracker crust were eating flour crust.  People who tasted the snozzberry said it tasted like snozzberry!  It was just one pie miracle after another.

And, they were beautiful.

This is a Bulgarian Apple pie and it was bulgarialicious.  I like to call it, Rose Pie.

The apples sat in a citrus custard and had warm apricot jam drizzled on top.

Mmmmmm.

Did I mention how out of all the things I'm grateful for, Thanksgiving is one of the tops?  I'm mean what other celebration combines super cuddly children and amazingly delicious pies?

And provides dramatic pictures of piano playing babies?