Hurrah for everything but the Pumpkin Pie!

I love this photo of Thanksgiving day because if you play "Where's Waldo" there are lots of people captured in it. I can't tell who some of the people are, but there's Jonas Leo right in front with his Thanksgiving feast consisting of Jell-O and a roll :-), Wyatt and Vivi getting busy with their Capri suns at the kid table, Tony, Emma, me (pretending to be Mario Batali with a towel over my left shoulder), Angie, Forrest and Dennis solving the problems of the world, with Joe looking on, Julie,Lauren, Grandma Hiatt in turqouise, Grandpa Hiatt getting some dark meat, Denny, Reagan, Elise, possibly Eli's back of the head right off to the side of Angie, someone to my left, and Calvin (if you look real close you can see him sleeping on the couch behind Vivi). Here's a close-up:

Dennis doing the honors!

mmmmmmmm, you can see the shrimp peaking its head out in the bottom corner!!

 

 Cool kids!

Could middle-aged kids.......

The Hallstrom family drove straight through, non-stop from Minnesota to Utah, 20 plus hours, in order to attend Muriel Wilkey's funeral. Forrest lived with her during his Senior year in High School and helped her take care of her yard, snow removal, ploughing the north 40 etc., and so he naturally counts as child #15. Her posterity numbered around 243 or something, and they had the family prayer and viewing in the chapel to accommodate everyone. She was a saint. She should be sainted.

As Angie expected I was a NERVOUS WRECK thinking about them driving straight through! I don't know what I envisioned. I have a bad habit of making things that aren't logical SEEM logical. So the fact that they were leaving Tuesday afternoon and getting her Wednesday afternoon just seemed like they were time traveling? Who knows! All I know is that when Angie mentioned they were driving straight through I sat up straight and yelped, "WHAT?"

I asked them to text me in the middle of the night as they traveled, and when I woke up early Wednesday morning, there were two memorable texts from them, bless their hearts.

From Forrest: "It is 2:23 am and all 5 of us are fully awake. Stopped for gas in Kearney, NE and both boys and Ang woke up. Lou wasn't really sleep and I was doing fine. Stars are plenty bright in NE at night."

From Angie:

"Have been in Wyoming for 45 minutes. Had some blowing snow and a little bit of freezing rain on and off. We slowed down a bit but everything is still pretty slick. Looking forward to the sun coming up......."

But they got here, safe and sound, and actually pretty bright-eyed and bushy tailed too! I was afraid everyone would be so hung over and hammered that they would be holding their eyelids open on Thanksgiving day and would be unable help make the stuffing, but they rebounded so well and were able to attend the funeral on Saturday which was what brought them here in the first place. We were blessed to be be at the funeral too. The family filled the entire chapel, and they closed it off and used it as the room for the viewing and the family prayer. During the funeral itself, when the grandchildren and great-grandchildren sang "Families Can Be Together Forever" they were all in the chapel of course, and we were behind them in the cultural hall. They stood, turned around, and faced the rest of us in the cultural hall and sang. It was awesome to see Angie's kids singing. They were seated toward the back of the chapel, so when everyone stood up and turned around, voila they were right in front!

The week of Thanksgiving it was balmy weather - seriously in the 60's - and I thought, hey, we need a good football game or something going on in the back yard -just as a nod to Andrew in North Carolina because I think he plays flag football on Thanksgiving day?. Only I didn't have a football. So I did my 2.5 minutes to Walmart thing and came home with TWO Nerf footballs! I think the kids had fun. I even went out and played with them for a little while too. I've always been able to throw a ball, for some reason unbeknownst to me, because in all other areas the athletic gods did not smile upon me, mainly NO CORE STRENGTH!!! and that's such a crucial element to athletic success. I joined the boys in the back yard and flung the football to Jonas and literally "GRUNTED" when I threw it! I've lost my throwing mojo! Tried three more throws and the throwing chops have flown the coup. Oh well, doesn't come up much in the life of a sedentary 62-year-old grandma. However, just for my own enjoyment ,when I was showing them how to hike the ball from center, I barked out to no one in particular (but Peyton in particular) "Omaha!....Omaha!" Makes me smile even now to think of it.

 I even cajoled Ethan to come out for a minute!

 And better yet, LOU!!!!

Then we got grandpa and Tony and Cindy out there too (and Forrest too I think but I had gone inside by then, pulled a hammie, speaking of which I was SORE the next day from my three wimpy throws).

Grandpa and the boys, and Tony is saying to Cindy, "I think you're hot!"

 Tony acting like he's listening intently, but actually planning....

a full-on wrap-around HUG! (While grandpa gives tips and pointers -"catch it with your hands."  I tried it once and hey, it's true, it's easier that way (than my way of trying to gruntily catch it with my entire torso)! Who knew? Dennis knew, that's who! But who told HIM? Nobody, that's who. He just knows.

Tony and Cindy and the kids drove up Wednesday and stayed over Wednesday night and Thursday night too. So it felt like a party!! Calvin said the cutest prayer last week, thanking Heavenly Father for grandma's batman legos.

Love this photo - it includes such lovely people, football on t.v. and the yummy Better Cheddars and squirt cheese on the counter (i.e. gracious living at the Hiatts as my mother used to say if we put the MILK CARTON ON THE DINNER TABLE!).By the way, I was at Grandma and Grandpa's condo the other day and they have such a peaceful, beautiful, feeling there. I felt like I was "back home" in La Grande. Lay down on the floor and watched the first half of a 1944 movie grandpa wanted me to see "Laura." I can't wait to watch the second half some time soon.

Three words....."Calvin loves puzzles!"

Jane was everywhere, helping me by my side the whole day, and doing Vivi's hair too.

.She stuffed the celery too (Seems like only yesterday that Amy was still in charge of stuffing the celery)!

Above is our poster with the menu all spelled out for us that Jane made.  It will probably stay on the wall until this summer!! Love it! Forrest made the fresh cranberry relish (LOVE IT SO MUCH!) and when it was time to make the sweet potatoes I think he was in the middle of a pool tournament in the basement or something. More on that in another photo further down. And just for me Great-grandpa Hiatt brought Kalamata olives too, to add to the green olives that I adore.


Below a random moment hanging out with Legos and handheld devices!

So fun to have loverly female spirits in my home: Denny and Emma and Julie and Grandma Hiatt and Angie and Cindy and Elise and Lauren and Reagan and Jane and Vivi, to help with every detail of the festivities. Angie loves Thanksgiving and I'm so glad she was here with us. I sure missed Amy, Andrea, Whitney, Care Bear, Macy and Carly. I missed the guys too, but there's something special about women working together, especially when you're making Thanksgiving dinner.....I missed Grandma Ranquist too!! She didn't have fond memories of the Sweat family Thanksgivings back in the day. She said the women worked from sun-up to sundown, and the dirty dishes never ended, and the men didn't lift a finger. Oh hallelujah that times have changed!

Angie creating her divine stuffing (with apples and craisens and walnuts and home-cut bread cubes).

Love my potato peeling girls!

The girls created their fabulous 2014 additions to the napkin ring collection!

Cindy made her delicious rolls (I don't think there were any left over). We put them in the laundry room to "proof" and it smelled so good in there.  Every time I'd open the door the smell that came whooshing out was heavenly!

We put Tony to work and decreed that he was in charge of green bean casserole!!

Denny and Joe brought an entire meal to our house from theirs in order to double our feast - oh joy and Thanksgiving for every bite of their yummy Thanksgiving turkey and potatoes and gravy and Haynie salad and stuffing and a plethora of yummy foods!). Oh, and the title of this post about "Hurrah for everything BUT the pumpkin pie? Oh man, let me just say, on behalf of everyone, we needed Dave's pumpkin pie. I bought six pies at Harmon's, trying to cut down on the Costco madness. I'll never do that again. They were so disappointing. Pumpkin, cherry, triple-berry, chocolate cream, banana cream............I got mad at them and threw them all away when we were done.


We watched "The Sound of Music" for Thanksgiving, during prep time, OF COURSE - and this was a classic year because Lauren and Elise are both "16 GOING ON 17!" Isn't that a scream? In this photo below they're actually watching "Funny Girl" which they loved. They're just barely old enough to watch it.

Grandpa Hiatt's 90th birthday was officially the next day, but was celebrated on Thanksgiving night. And Julie and Tom drove down from Vancouver, Washington to join in the celebrating and surprised him!

Much hugging ensued:

Great-grandpa also has the "Mo-vember" Errol Flynn moustache look going on again this year. We all gave it two thumbs up!

Okay, back to the sweet potatoes. Angie and I made them at the last second - this is the one time I really wish I had two ovens! I told her to set the oven on Broil, and we sprinkled the mini-marshmallows over the top, and I moved the rack up to the top of the oven to beautifully brown the marshmallows. Well, see the dish that is next to the stack of empty little plates? Yeah, that's the blackened marshmallows. All of a sudden there was smoke pouring out of the oven and we had to talk ourselves into liking them. I kinda did actually!

The kids were such good sports and sang great-grandpa a song to the tune of "I've Got a Loverly Bunch of Coconuts" (Oh, you've got a loverly bunch of grandchildren, here they are a standin' in a row. Big ones, small ones, some are six-foot six!....).and then they did a random little play sprinkled with Shakespeare quotes to honor great-grandpa's love of Shakespeare. The family gave him a book full of tributes and memories and photos. He loves it. He and mom read it lots and lots and everyone wrote such memorable things.

Later on at the end of Thanksgiving night some people went Black Friday shopping and some people went to the movie "Intersteller." I was pleased as punch to stay home with the little kids and put on a movie and feel the warm vibrations of love still pulsing through the house. shhhhhh, don't tell Denny this, but halfway through babysitting, our beautiful Emma walked up the stairs from the basement and my brain did a double-take. Emma? I'd forgotten I was babysitting Emma. Luckily she is quite self-sufficient!!

...........and do not let Reagan and Tony play with your Smartphone.................

or Wyatt, Eli, Reagan and Vivi either!

but, especially, . . . . Tony..............

Here is Dennis on Friday - "It's the Most, Won-der-ful sandwich, of the year!"

Grandkids playing Racko the day after.............

and visiting Uncle Steve and Aunt Shirlee with Grandpa and Grandma Hiatt and Julie and Tom and Emma. I took this photo so Andrew will know how his eyebrows will look in 40 years!

and then last week had a really fun Monday night at the Springville Art Museum on Friends and Family night and saw Tony's cool painting on display.

Cal andVivi got to make stained glass artwork and had such a great time doing it!

and, then, when it was time to go home, look who was driving!!!
Love her, love you, love you all! XO mom

Now I know why Van Gough cut off his ear....

For my birthday this year Amy gave me a gift of some art classes at a cute studio RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO MY WORK! I went four weeks for two hours each class. My friend Lynette came with me which made it loads of fun.

This is what I learned:

Week #1: Painting....(well, chalking, we never DID get to use paint - JUST CHALK. And Lynette and I had to share our tin of chalk, but that's okay, there were plenty of each color....) anyway, painting is hard work and takes a bunch of patience. I don't have patience at ALL! Class was two hours long and after about 45 minutes I started thinking, when are we going to rest, or do something different? but it was laying down chalk, laying down chalk, laying down chalk. The teacher gave us minimal instruction, and hilariously, played PAN FLUTE MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND. Andrew, eat your heart out!  At one point, right about when I was so overwhelmed with musky, arty, angst I blurted out, "I'll pay you ten bucks to change radio station!" I was way out of line. But she did change it, and the feng shui was so much better. But wow, I had to get conditioned to the rigor of it all!

Week #2: Painting can bring out lots of emotions. The second week, we worked on the SAME PICTURE! And I don't even have a picture of the picture any more. It was a stream, flowing out of a mountain. I sent it to you guys on Instragram. I was irrationally and irreverently not in the mood to try to fix my picture any more that second week. I was, actually petulant? I had a mini crisis of faith in myself and that's when I considered cutting off my ear.

Week #3: I took a deep breath, a stepped back, changed my attitude, decided to take things seriously, and realized that learning to draw/paint/chalk takes hours and hours, lo, years and years, and I wasn't as good at this as I thought I'd be, and so I needed to hunker down and take baby steps. I was more focused and serious. Week #3 was a desert scene. You can see depictions below. I don't love desert scenes (I'm no Andrea!). And for some reason, without asking permission, I ended up taking a pen out of my purse and DRAWING with pen and ink on my paper before I did any chalking.

See my cool turtle? And my adorable bunny? and my menacing lizard?

Week #4: We learned about clouds and sky, two of my very favorite things. And I had soooooooo much fun laying down color. As a matter of fact, my mouth was watering at one point it was so much fun. It was worth it just for that moment. And I settled into the two-hour format too. As I was putting down a color, on top of another beautiful color, my mind caught hold of a feeling of "This didn't exist until I made it. And I'm going to lay this turquoise chalk on top of this pale blue and do it so carefully, and consciously, and concretely, that I create an exact space and color that will become real." THAT was a glorious feeling. Oh my gosh it's so hard, and so interesting. I find myself studying the sky and clouds now. I put my sky picture on the fridge- how cute is THAT? (it's the first photo on this blog - such a pretty sunny yellow - there are also parts of the picture not in the photo that blend into blue and red, which are supposed to be sky too, but look vaguely mountainish when I study them).
(p.s. - the teacher really wanted us to sign up for more classes, (of course), but we told her we had to end our careers after four weeks. But hey, she didn't give us back our desert drawings! Glad I took a photo of my turtle!).

XOXO
Happy day before the day before Thanksgiving,
Mama Gough

I took these photos outside of the art studio, coolest clouds EVER!