Thanksgiving 2013

I'll start with this.  It's the only "food" picture I thought to take.  It's a turtle cheesecake.  Sorry about the background; all other counter tops were full.

We had originally planned to meet at Amy & Mike's house for Thanksgiving this year and do Christmas here.  That all changed when they closed on a new house and moved into it the weekend before we all were to meet together.  It certainly wouldn't work to converge on them while they were in the middle of moving in and putting things away.  So everyone came here.  And I do mean everyone.  This is one of the few times we have been able to have all of our "kids", their spouses, all the grandkids and even one great grandchild.  We were packed in, but believe me we had plenty of food.  For example we cooked 20 pounds of potatoes, had a 21 pound turkey and a ten pound boneless ham.  We ate it all (in two days).  There was lots of other food, including Karen's homemade dressing and Aaron's homemade cranberry sauce.

Enough about food, except that we were very grateful to have it.  We were also very grateful for all the delightful and very cute children in our family.  Things were so busy that I'm not sure I got photos of all of them but I'll post a few.  Sorry, I still am not allowed to post any of the twins.  I wish I had taken pictures of Dustan, Dominic and my own children.  Things just get too busy.  Amy did the individual pictures that you will see.  We used them to create some Christmas ornaments for them to take home and hang on their tree.  I probably should have taken a picture of all of those too.

These little guys were born three months apart this year; they are interested in pretty much the same things.  They will be good friends when they get a little older.

Jeanette's boys are train fans just like their "papa".  They were watching train youtubes until I decided to take their picture.

Andrew got new indestructible glasses this year.  He loves wearing them.

 

 

Emily is no longer a baby.  What a little cutie she is.

Noah sometimes gets a little stressed when so many people are around.  He looks pretty happy here.

Sawyer is sitting up for his picture.  He has two teeth even though you can't see them in this picture.

This is a small smile for Charlie.  He's a very happy boy.

Our Zach is looking so "teen-agery" these days.  Where do the years go?

Here is our great granddaughter, Ashlynn.  She and Sawyer are about the same age.  Isn't that fun?

Here is a four generation picture.  We're even standing in the right order.

Here's our sweet Sierra.  She is such a good helper when family gets together.

Daniel is growing up to be such a handsome young man.