Stuffing Ourselves Silly

Every year, we drive up to Dallas and spend Thanksgiving day with David's side of the family. My sister-in-law Donelle hosts the main event at her house, always around 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and always with at least, a 20 pound turkey. This year, the turkey was about 21 pounds. When it came time to take the bird's temp, there was some discussion as to where to stick the meat thermometer. Since I am just a daughter-in-law, I did not give my opinion, but laughed along when my MIL settled the matter with her usual "I know what I'm doing attitude." Of course, the turkey came out perfectly fine.

When we arrived the previous day, we walked through Donelle's front door, and realized we'd forgotten one very important thing...allergy medicine for Christina. Donelle had acquired 2 cats since we last visited, and Christina is allergic to cats. Before this weekend, she didn't have any reactions as long as she had Claritin. Apparently her allergy has grown worse (or maybe it was the particular breed of cats Donelle has?), because within one hour...even with a dose of Claritin (provided by Donelle), Christina was fussing, rubbing her eyes, and sneezing like crazy. Poor baby.

Later on, we went to my MIL's house for dinner, and her symptoms grew worse...she started crying and screaming that her throat was itchy. Lord have mercy. We got her some Benadryl on the way back to Donelle's house, and I got her ready for bed. Christina was exhausted by now, and wanted to go to sleep, but she kept crying and thrashing around on her sleeping bag. She finally fell asleep (thanks to the Benadryl), but before she crashed, she clocked me twice in the face, and let me tell you...that is not pleasant when you're wearing glasses.

The next morning, Christina was fine for about 1 hour, and then the crying started all over again. I called my other sister-in-law Stephanie, and asked her if Christina could take refuge at her cat-free house. David drove her over, and she spend nearly all day there until it was time for everyone to gather back at Donelle's house for the Thanksgiving dinner. When she started to fuss, David took her outside and kept her company. Stephanie offered to let her spend the night...which turned into an all-girls sleepover at her house because Rebecca and my oldest niece Abby (Donelle's daughter) clamored to go too. Stephanie can handle just about anything, (particularly a gaggle of little girls) and I am eternally grateful to her for taking care of Christina for us.

With that issue settled, I helped get the buffet ready. We had turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, pea salad, jello salad, and...I think that's it!

The "boys" kept the kids busy outside at the neighborhood park while the women worked the kitchen. They played the annual Resinger/Wiechman Touch Football game. We're pretty sure my oldest nephew Adam rigged the teams to his advantage, because he came home doing more than one victory dance. I didn't get any pics because Gabriel was napping and I needed to keep an ear open for him. He didn't nap hardly at all the day before, so he nearly missed all of the turkey dinner because he slept for just over 3 hours. He was a hungry baby when he finally woke up!

Abby read a prayer on the back of the program from mass that morning before we said grace. She did a great job.

Gabriel apparently wasn't the only one who was hungry. Joshua was determined to eat one of the turkey drumsticks. Grandma did carve some of the meat off the bone, but she gave Joshua the rest, and that kid picked it clean. He sure was proud of himself.

Then everyone went around to say what they were thankful for. I can't remember all the responses; someone said "pie," my nephew Daniel said, "trains," and I was thankful Christina wasn't crying at the time.

After dinner, dessert, (which was pumpkin, pecan, or chocolate cream pie, plus cookies for the kids ) and wine, the kitchen was cleaned up, and Donelle ran the dishwasher, only to discover later on that some little child (likely one of my little nephews) had pushed one of the buttons, so she had to start the "wash" cycle all over again. It was funny, especially since we didn't know exactly who the culprit was :-). All the kids had at least 2 cookies, and the "girls," sat on the bench together (l-r, John, Mary, Rebecca, Abby, and Daniel).

My MIL Terry always wants a picture of all the kids every Thanksgiving. So we piled everyone on the couch. It's always a riot trying to get everyone to cooperate for just a couple of minutes. But this year's pic turned out pretty good...we are missing some kids, but we'll see them at Christmas time...Ben, George, Joey, and Sofia.

From l-r, top row, Adam, Abby, Joshua. Sitting, l-r, are Andrew, Nick, Mary, Gabriel, Christina, Daniel, John, and Rebecca.

We watched the usual football games, and I was praying hard for my Aggies, but we were outscored by those darn tea-sips. I'm sure I'll be hearing about it from my Longhorn friend Katie. Sigh...Mike Sherman better get his act into gear next season. And let's PASS the ball without getting sacked for heaven's sake!

The kids had a great time playing with all their cousins, and Joshua indulged in Adam and Andrew's electronic devices (the Nintendo DS, Wii, and other video games). Joshua keeps dreaming about getting a Wii. Dream on kid. He did suffer from Wii withdrawal after I told him it was time to pack up his suitcase. Yep... a nine year old is still capable of pouting like a toddler. He did perk up after he and Andrew dressed up in Star Wars costumes and pretended to fight each other with toy lasers.

Gabriel found his favorite seat in the house, Uncle Henry's oversized recliner (oversized because he's 6' 4").

We decided this morning to go ahead and head home instead of staying until Saturday like we'd originally planned. We didn't want to pawn Christina off on Stephanie anymore, nor did we want to pack up everything, stay at Terry's house, and then have to repack and load up the van again. So we're back home now, and I've already done a load of laundry (mainly Christina's clothes so she isn't exposed to any more cat dander). I'll be putting a call into the pediatrician next week to see what she recommends, since we're going back to Dallas for a few days right after Christmas.

I am thankful we had a great time though...it is always a blessing for me to spend time with family, especially when there is great food and awesome desserts to spoil my appetite and my "diet" (which is officially off until Jan 1). It was worth every bite.