Stuffed to the gills

Our all seafood-themed Thanksgiving (“Seafood Stuffin’ ‘25”) was a huge success! I can’t believe I even have enough post-meal energy to upload this post.

The day started with a cute photo of Auggie opening an early Christmas card. Later we got to FaceTime with Colton, which included some fleeting glances of the high-energy 3yo as he zoomed from one end of the house to the other and back again!

I started staging the recipes and ingredients early.

Although it wasn’t on our menu, I decided we needed something semi-traditional for some mid-day energy, so I made some pumpkin and cream cheese muffins. Even better than the ones we get at Starbucks!

Love our little toothpick-grabbing bird toothpick holder. I don’t bake very often, so he doesn’t see a lot of use.

Steve started by grating cheese for the lobster mac & cheese. Luckily we were recently at the Tillamook factory on our trip to the Redwoods, so we had plenty of cheeses to choose from.

Later Steve broiled up the lobster tails. This was a first for us, but Steve said it was actually incredibly easy. You cut a slit in the shell and open it halfway to broil. After broiling the one side you remove them from the shell and then flip them over for a little back side broil.

We used part of the lobster to make lobster roll pull-apart using a pack of Hawaiian rolls and some Old Bay seasoning, and of course a ton of butter!

After the lobster tasks, Steve got to rest and watch football, and the second shift stepped up to make some fresh crab and shrimp ravioli.

About the same time I managed to explode a melted stick of butter in the microwave. We will be cleaning that up for the next year I’m sure.

Montana and Elijah chop chop chopped and rolled and cut fresh pasta. Montana whipped up a white wine garlic cream sauce, I was quite impressed!

Flynn went up to the magic line at the top of the stairs to keep an eye on the action.

We got cute traditional Thanksgiving-themed shirts that said Butter, Mashed Potatoes, Deviled Eggs, and Charcuterie in university-style font. Very cute!

For the past few weeks I’ve had the table decorated in a traditional Thanksgiving theme, but of course for our crazy seafood fest, I had to replace it all with a butter-proof plastic seafood theme. This included locating the kids old seafood Beanie Babies. Plus lobster headbands and plastic bibs were mandatory for all.