Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Here are some pics from Thanksgiving. What a great time!!! After giving our house a much needed cleaning (man, the oven STUNK when we cleaned it for the first time in three years...) we were excited to have at our place my parents, Mac and Janice, my sister Gina, her husband Jeff, and their five children: Zach, Megan, Nathan, Tyler and Trevor (yes, three year old twin boys!), my sister Cara, and my sister Jenny and her guy Ben. 19 people, including us! We had a great time cooking the meal, which in my opinion is one of the best parts of thanksgiving, and stuffed our faces the rest of the day. Jaeden gave the Thanksiving meal prayer, and he did a fantastic job of it. I have to say I thought my sweet potatoes were fantastic! Wendi made a 20 pound turkey and despite everyone's best effort (well, besides Gina who just didn't help out much with the bird at all :), we still a week later have quite a lot of it left! We had pie, Turkey cookies (see the picture below!), and frog eye salad galore. Jaeden and Zach watched the Eagles-Cardinals game Thursday night, and as bad as that game turned out it was still much better then the other two games that we didn't even bother watching. Friday was spent with people shoping (Gina and my mom left before 4, Cara and Wendi around 5). I went out in the afternoon with Jeff to look for farm toys. It was actually a lot of fun! I also played a killer game of Risk with Jaeden, Hannah, Megan, Zach and Ben. Hannah and Megan playing together won the game by killing off Zach. I had TWO chances to win, but Ben beat me both times in Mexico. Oh well, I'll get over my feelings of anger, disappointment, bitterness and worthlessness in time :) Dang you Ben!!! Dang you Mexico!!! Hannah and Megan also spent most of their day playing guitar hero IIi on the Wii and almost made it through the entire co-op series. What a bunch of rock goddessess! Anyway, Wendi made Chili for supper and then we played Scatergories. It was tons of fun! Then everyone who had gotten up early passed out and we called it a night! Saturday we left in the morning for Ames and then drove to Des Moines to see the Nutcracker. It was great, although for some reason they only had one Russian boy dancing during the Russian part so there wasn't as much cool Russian guy dancing as usual, but still it was fantastic. Wendi and the twins had stayed home, so it was just four of us with Gina and her older kids and my mom, but it was a wonderful time. That night we all went to Taco Time for supper. I got a turkey and stuffing crisp burrito that you dipped in gravy. Strange, but tasty! Sunday morning it snowed, which was magical, and we drove home, went to church, and came home and collapsed. It couldn't have been better. It was so wonderful to see my sisters and my niece and nephews and to have us all together. Coupled with going out to Utah last month, I got to see everyone I'm closely related to within a month. Yeah!!! I absolutely love Thanksgiving, and am truely thankful for my family. They mean the world to me and I'm so glad I got to spend a time of thanks with them. Here's a few pictures. Other people took pictures too (my dad took about three thousand) so when I get their pictures there will probably be a few more I put in for Thanksgiving. Anyway, thanks for reading and have a great holiday season!!!

My mother Janice teaching a new generation how exciting it is to peel potatoes... Well, they all seemed to love doing it so maybe it is exciting! And the potatoes did turn out fantastic, all eight pounds of them! Not that is A-peeling!!!

Ten of my parents thirteen grandchildren gathered to give thanks by eating a lot of food! This is (from the top) Liam and Logan, Nathan, Jaeden, Zachery, Annika, Megan, Tyler, Hannah and Trevor)

All of the kids after being told they didn't get to eat unless they were much more relaxed.


The buddies, who weren't quite as thankful as the rest of us for the food and just wanted to go play with their train set.

Everyone getting ready to eat. Although Trevor is covered up by Jeff, this has everyone in it but my father Mac and myself. Jenny took a better picture of us and when I get it I'll add it as well.

Hannah. If you look carefully, you'll see Braces. She got braces on her front four teeth the day before Thanksgiving. They didn't hurt much, she said, and she did get to put black and orange rubber bands on them, which are the colors of her school, Prairie Ridge.

Jenny with her amazing plate of food. Nicely done!

Cara showing off her skills as well. Not bad!!!

And of course, after eating the triptophane comes... zzz...

Later we ate Turkey cookies (made with real turkeys... not really, but they are pretty!)

Annika getting ready to do Dance Dance Revolution

Hannah and Megan setting up Dance Dance Revolution.

Hannah and Megan rocking out! They had so much fun together. I can imagine them starting up a band in high school and taking the world by storm.

Logan also wanted to be a Rock God. I think he pulled it off!

Logan and I watching the girls rock out!

Cyber shoping can effect even the best of us. Right Ben? Ben? Ben? Snap out of it, Ben!

Me and my sissies. We also took a picture of all the grand kids, but somehow not with my camera! Oh well. I think we make a great looking group! This was taken before everyone took off, and for me is proof that we had a great time. I mean, after spending forty eight hours together we could still look off whistfully into the future together dreaming of a better world. That's family for you...

Jenny and Logan. He was very excited that she picked him up.

As we were leaving to go to Ames Annika was ready to go. She found this walkman and listened to CD's almost the entire weekend. She even had the headphones on while brushing her teeth. She also wants a car for christmas. Did she somehow turn 16 without me realizing it?