Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving 2009!

Good dog, Shade!

Sisters!

Hayley, Mommy, Hannah

Mommy and Hannah

Hayley and Mommy

Hannah and her cool new argyle sweater!

Hayley in her new outfit

Hannah, Suzanne, Doug, Hayley and Harrison in a pile!

The kids and Aunt Suzanne

Doug and the kids

Doug and the girls

Hannah and her daddy

Doug and his sister Suzanne

Hayely with a glass of sparkling cider and her newfound passion - the guitar!

Jeff and I in our traditional self portrait!

Jeff and the dogs watching football!

My pretty Thanksgiving table

Arlie made the menus, Hayley made the name tags!

Hannah the piano girl!

All fourteeen of us fit around the tables!
We had the best Thanksgiving! For the first time since our divorce, the kids had both mommy and daddy at dinner together, and also got the bonus of seeing Aunt Suzanne after many years! Plus, we had our "family" of the West and Westwood families, Amy, Michele and Julius, and Jody, Rome and Ivy. Jeff and I got up early to get the turkeys going. I baked an 18 lb turkey in the oven (traditional) and Jeff smoked a 12 lb. turkey with a 2 lb. pheasant inside in the smoker (definitely NOT traditional, but delicious!). Jeff had just hunted the pheasant yesterday so they were fresh and really delicious smoked. I served some of that with cream cheese and homemade cranberry sauce as an appetizer and it was amazing! We had lots of snacks before dinner and dinner itself was delicious. I don't get to cook much since it's Jeff's passion, but I did the turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy (and my gravy WAS velvety smooth), sweet potatoes, stuffing (which was GROSS - why even have stuffing? I hate it anyway). Jeff also made brussels sprouts with bacon viniagrette (yum!) and Harrison made Waldorf salad. Arlie made Muddy Buddies, Hannah made trifle. And Doug and Harrison made apple, pumpkin, and pecan pies. Amy and Michele brought green bean casserole. It was a delicious meal! We laughed till our sides hurt. Good friends, good food, good talk - we are blessed! Happy Thanksgiving!




















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