I did it! Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, it has been a while since my last post. Forgive me. (I feel like I should be in a confessional or something, but I am lutheran!)

Anyway, Thanksgiving weekend was fabulous! I had such a great time with my family, I just can't even tell you all of it. But I will touch on the highlights and show some pix:

The turkey turned out scrumptious! (If I do say so myself.)

I ended up just throwing the 22 pound stuffed bird in an old roaster with some water in the bottom, covered all with foil and left it alone for about 5 hours. Then, took off the foil and basted it a couple of times.


The smoke detector only went off about three times, if I remember correctly. But it was NOT the turkey that caused the issues. Maybe I spilled something on the bottom of the oven while basting, I am not sure. It just wouldn't be a home-cooked meal by Viv, if the smoke detector did not go off at some point.

I made stuffing that received some pretty high marks from family members. Someone told me to rip apart day-old bread. I am telling you the only ripping I did was rip open the Brownberry bag of nicely cubed stuffing already seasoned and ready to go. I did add a few things to the stuffing, like sausage, onions, celery, apples and more spices -- garlic of course. And some more sage. You just gotta have sage!


My brother peeled and mashed 10 pounds of potatoes to go with our yams. He also made 6 pies! Yummy! Mom made cranberry sauce - homemade (and brought the stuff in the can for the less discriminating in the bunch!), green bean casserole, homemade buns, a bunch of cookies, bars, and all kinds of other stuff.

Everybody helped out in some way and brought something to the table. I am sure I am forgetting something, but needless to say, nobody, not one of us 16 LaMoore's went hungry! (Or thirsty!)

All of the bodies stretched out on the couches, chairs and floor afterwards was a testiment to that.


We played some games later: The kids downstairs on the Wii and some older kids (like me) in the dinning room playing Catch Phrase, Scrabble, Silly Scrabble (where you can make up a word using all or some of your letters, but you must be able to pronouce it, define it, and use it in a sentence. Then everyone votes whether it is believable or not. Hilarious!) and Trivia Pursuit. There is quite a bit of compitition in my family and proclaiming, "52 hours of labor and this is how you repay me?" doesn't gain a mother any points on the board. Just so you know. Laurie, don't try that again!

My face hurt from laughing so hard for so long.

We all had a wonderful time. We caught up on some things -- my nephew that was going to school in Mongolia, has since married a girl from Japan and they have an apartment in Tokyo (I think?). We realize there is so much more we missed and can't wait to get together again in a couple of weeks. There simply was not enough time.

There was a lot of laughing going on! Memories were made. We were properly stuffed. We had plenty of liquid beverages. The fire kept us warm and love filled our home. Thanks everyone!

Happy holidays!