Thanksgiving 2012, Delaney Style

the turkey

Ryan carving the turkey

My brother Ryan

My sister Laura

homemade cranberry sauce

Left to right, My sister Maureen, niece Ambia (16yrs), niece Paisley (11yrs) (those nieces are Lorraine and Gene's girls)

My brother Connor and my sister-in-law Annelle

My nephew (one of Lorraine and Gene's two boys) Lucian (4yrs), and mine and David's baby Drake (1yr)

Little turkey's my sisters Maureen and Laura, my dad and my mom made

Maureen and our mama

My sister Kileen making her husband Gerald laugh about something. Ryan in the background :)

One of the tables

Some of the gal pals, from left to right: my daughter Violet (4 yrs), Aurora (Kileen and Gerald's daughter, 5 yrs), part of Maya (One of Laura and Ken's two daughters, 6 yrs).

Peaking out of the door is Connor's daughter, Bria (4 yrs), Aurora, Maya, and our oldest son Liam (6 yrs).

Laura and Ken's youngest daughter, Emily (5 yrs)

part of Gene (13 yrs) (Lorraine and Gene's other son), back there is my sister-in-law (Ryan's wife) Amber, Ambia holding a sprite, Ryan, back of Paisley's head.

Close up of Amber (she's prego with another boy)

Amber and Ryan's son, Roman (3 yrs)... the picture was sooooo blurry that I used a few filters to make it look more like a painting... just for fun.

Paisley, my sisters Lorraine and Maureen

My mom, Kileen and Geralds little boy, Nolan (1 yr), and Kileen

David and Drake

Laura, our Dad, Gerald

Mashed Potatoes

Sweet potatoes, glazed carrots, asparagus

Our dad, mom, Maya, Gene, back of Laura and Maureen's heads, Bria with the bow in her hair and part of Violet.

Liam ate mashed potatoes and rolls

Drake eating mashed potatoes too and making the same face as his brother.

 Bria

Violet eating some gingersnaps

Paisley and Lorraine

Amber, Ryan, Dad, Laura, Maureen, Liam thought it was funny to raise his hand in front of my camera :-/

mom, Liam's hand, and Maya

Paisley

mom and dad

The girl pack. Bria's at the back, Aurora, Maya, Violet, Emily

We discovered you can see through these plastic spoons, so my mom was wearing them like glasses.

Lorraine and her husband Gene

Maureen put some turkey on a plate and gave the turkey she made a plastic fork and said "Let this be a lesson to the rest of you". It made me laugh.

Shot of me and David, courtesy of Laura.

For Thanksgiving this year it was very special because all of my brothers and sisters were back together again, along with our parents, our spouses (except Laura's :( (who had to work), and our kids (except Abel, Annelle and Connor's son, who had to spend the day with his dad). For a total of 27 peeps... well 27.5 counting the baby boy growing in my sister in-law, Amber's, belly.

Me and David got the pleasure of hosting this year. We actually had enough seats for everybody!

FOOD:

The Appetizers:
Pumpkin dip with gingersnaps (by Amber... super scrumptious)
Crackers, meat, cheese (Laura bought, Kileen prepped)


Main Course:
Turkey (cooked by me, with lots of prayer, it came out super delicious if I do say so myself)
Rolls (I bought some, Kileen made some, Lorraine bought some)
Mashed Potatoes (Cooked by me, they were all eaten)
Glazed Carrots (very yummy, by Kileen)
Roasted Cauliflower (so very tasty, by Amber)
Asparagus (how can you go wrong with asparagus? by Laura or my mom)
Orzo Fruit Salad (or Rosa Marina Salad depending on which pasta you use) This is a Delaney family Thanksgiving tradition, Connor made it this year. Growing up we always used Rosa Marina but haven't been able to find that pasta in Texas.
Salad (by Laura, I didn't have any so I can't say how good it was, but I'm sure it was great)
Stuffing (by Gene, it was really good with lots of ground sausage and lots of mushrooms)
Cranberry sauce and gravy was cooked by Lorraine
Sweet Potatoes (by Laura, delicious)

Dessert:
Pumpkin pie, dutch apple pie, pecan pie (made by Sister See from church, so very good)
Pumpkin cheesecake pie (bought by Laura)
Apple pie (made by my mom)

It was wonderful being together. Cousins all had fun together... there was very little arguing among the children. We all took turns talking to each other.

That night me and my 4 sisters and one of my sister's friends went to see Breaking Dawn part 2 together... even though I had already seen it, I couldn't miss out seeing it with my fun sisters. And yes we had so much fun. We all enjoy the Twilight series very much (well I don't know how much Laura likes it, but she has fun making fun of it for sure), the rest of us also really enjoy making fun of it too... so we were the ones in the back of the theater, probably annoying every single person there with our constant giggling. Kileen would say something hilarious to me or I to her and we would crack up. We'd whisper it to Lorraine who would also crack up but not pass the funniness on because she would laugh too much. Then on Maureen's end, her and her friend Ariel were saying funny things (I assume, haha) and Laura (who sat next to Lorraine and Maureen) kept saying funny things that me and Kileen didn't get to hear because, again, Lorraine would be laughing too much to tell us what was so funny. When it was over we got out and so funny we saw our sister in law Amber there with her mom! Then we felt bad we hadn't thought of her. She said it was perfectly fine, she was happy to see it with her mom. She also told us that she did hear us giggling (though she didn't know that was us) she said it wasn't too loud and it didn't bother her ;)

The next day we met up at the park for a big family picture. Sorry Abel and Ken weren't there to be in the pictures.

This year I am definitely feeling thankful for my family!