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Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving preparations began the Tuesday before Thanksgiving when our oldest son, Zachary, began making homemade bread dough for cinnamon rolls. In a big family tradition that began many years ago by my husband's grandmother, continuing to my husband's dad, it has now passed on to two of my husband's brothers, and now to our son. 
Zachary was honored to get to do half of the cinnamon rolls for the family Thanksgiving!  He's definitely close - if not "on target" - for perfecting them.  One of his cousins told him they were just like "Gramps" would have made them.  What a compliment!  Personally, I hope he keeps practicing :).  Hee hee!
We had a huge group for Thanksgiving Eve singing night at the Tipton church of Christ, followed by yummy finger foods at my mother-in-law's.
There were 40 people there, so it takes a lot of food!  
Plus, we always have leftovers to eat for the next few days for those who prefer the snack food over the regular turkey and dressing....or those who want it all!

The yearly "Turkey Trot" brought out quite a few brave souls to run/walk/or even ride a bicycle.
I always like the pictures seeing the walkers and runners from behind.  I thought about walking this year, but I wouldn't want to give up the pictures of the event!  Plus, someone has to keep time for the runners. :)
Thanksgiving Dinner was wonderful, as usual.  The potatoes, green beans and corn were all garden grown.  And that's a HUGE bowl of mashed potatoes!  The homemade "hot" (that's the 'official' name for them, even if they're not HOT :) ) roll recipe has also been passed on from generation to generation.  Not sure that my father-in-law's can ever be exactly duplicated, but they're still great!
I make a cheesecake every year. This time it was a trial, but turned out really good.  It was a salted caramel/chocolate covered dulce de leche cheesecake.  Sounds fancy....pretty simple.
We had two out of three of our littlest new family members.  We had so much fun with all of the "littles" around!  Seems like my own were the littles not too long ago!
This little girl is the very newest to the family.  She was born November 17th.  She enjoyed her first Thanksgiving!
Liverpool Rummy and 42 are THE games of the season for our family.  Sadly, I only played two games of Liverpool this year, and one of them wasn't a whole game.  I'll have to have my own family play with me to get my "fix" for the year since we won't be around for Christmas for this side of the family.
Thanksgiving afternoon it's time for the traditional "Pumpkin Bash".  This year the pumpkins were rotting early, so they were goopy, stinky, and ready for bashing!
Here's the soon-to-be-married couple posing on the biggest pumpkin! They will be married New Year's Day!  It was C's first time to be at our family Thanksgiving and he won the "Turkey Trot"!
This was the biggest cousin picture at the pumpkins in a long time!  Two cousins and their families were the only ones missing this year!  That's quite an accomplishment in a big family!
I thought this picture was cute of our oldest son. He had just been splattered with pumpkin pulp!  But he didn't seem to mind!
Our nephew got a nice hit on a really ripe one!  The effects are great!
A new tradition in the making, perhaps? Not sure about this one!
You know how I feel about my new "old" pickup????
And that HUGE pumpkin went on top of it!
And then down it went!
It busted right in two! Amazing how heavy those things are when they're mostly hollow inside!

Some ask about cleaning up the field after the pumpkin bash.  You know what? My husband MOWS them!  Yes!  They are cut into tiny, tiny pieces, barely visible from the road at all.  And the birds love it.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with many happy memories with your family and friends.








1 comment:

Wa Wa Waughs said...

Love all the pics - especially since I didn't have my "good" camera with me!

 
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