Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving was nearly a week ago and I think I'm just coming out of the fog now.

The holiday was fantastic, as it usually is, and my only complaint is that it didn't last longer.

The fire was too hot, we ate too much food, and we talked too loudly.  And I loved every minute of it.

Most families get together for the evening and enjoy a nice meal.

My family turns a simple celebration into a four-day extravaganza of food, games, and chatting.

We started on Wednesday with Boss Burgers, turkey and the fixin's on Thursday, leftovers on Friday, and a huge ham dinner on Saturday.  Oh yeah, and we threw in a big breakfast at our house on Saturday morning, just to shake things up a bit.

Laci had a blast playing with her cousin "Bubs" and

quickly learned that Aunty Jenny is the best source for yummy food.

This is my beautiful mama, the person who makes it all possible.

Her food, and home, are the glue that bind us together.

I know she gets completely exhausted preparing food and cleaning,

but I also know she thrives on the chaos and would much rather

exhaust herself than have a quiet home.

My lovely sisters, and friends for life.

This is my cousin, Brandon, who is quite possibly the MOST bored teenager of all time.

And, even though I didn't get pictures of them, my dad, grandma, David, and Myles were there, too.

I tried to be a good picture taker, but got burned out pretty quickly.  I forgot AGAIN to get a family picture of Ryan, Laci, and I, but did remember to get one with each of them separately, so I feel like maybe, someday in the near future, I'll actually remember that we are a family now and I'd like a picture of us together.

I feel truly blessed, and am very grateful, for the family I've been given.  I can't imagine my life without them.  During dinner, I tried to get everyone to talk about what they're grateful for.

I started with the obvious, "I'm grateful for my amazing family."

Beth blurted out, "That's what I was going to say!"

Then Bubs said, "I'm grateful for my Wii!"

That pretty much ended the grateful circle and we were too busy chowing down to continue any talking.

For the record, those were the quietest ten minutes of the entire weekend.

And since I'm feeling all mushy, and feel like I need to lighten it up a bit, and since I like beginning sentences with "and"...I'd like to share this picture:

This is the only food picture I took.  And I'm sure my mother would be mortified.  She spent a whole day baking pies from scratch, brined the turkey a day in advance, made stuffing from scratch, basted the turkey every thirty minutes for three and a half hours, and created the most amazing mashed potatoes anyone has ever tasted. And the gravy she made...OH, the gravy!  Yum!  And then she served this.  And I find it very amusing.  Mostly because cranberry sauce is only served one way in my family, has been for years, and that is in the shape of the can it came in. Only a few of us like cranberry sauce anyway, and we really like the stuff from the can.  Crazy, I know.  Especially after watching Food Network all week and realizing that people can actually make sauce from cranberries on the stove, with all kinds of exotic ingredients like ginger, and peaches, and spices.  But, I love my canned cranberry sauce, and I love that she served it up in the bowl, can and everything.  And now I have this memory recorded for myself, my children, my children's children, and of course, all the rest of the world that might stop by the blog.   Now, I'm already counting down the days to next year's festivities, canned cranberry sauce and all.