Big Time Rewind!!

Sooo....... our camera is still missing, our laptop is officially on the fritz, and I'm sorry, because I know how hard this has been on all of you. The waiting, wondering if I am going to write, hoping every day that you will get on your little computers and there will be a new title by my blog name. So here are some happenings from about forever ago that I have been trying to write about and put on here. I hope it makes you happy. :)

For Thanksgiving, we decided to have all of our family get together the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so that there weren't conflicts with in-laws, etc. Danny decided this was the perfect time to try making a Turduckin, which he has talked about making for a long time. It is a chicken, inside a duck, inside a turkey, all with stuffing and suasage and other stuff inside. This was a good time to try it, since everyone had already had their turkey, so if this was horrible, we didn't ruin their turkey fantasies.

We had to start two days before de-boning all the meat, then on Saturday we started assembling all the parts. It was quite the labor of love.

 The future of cooking. This is Danny watching a clip on his iTouch of how to make a Turduckin.

We called him Frankenbird, Frank for short, because he was so..., well, you can see why. This was after we sewed him up with all of his layers inside. It felt kind of weird when we were shoving stuffing up the back end. Tasty! 

I think it cooked for 12 hours, and you can see it is much improved after that. 

We had Tyler and his family over, Benda and kid, Dalley and kid, the Darringtons, Kattie and Josh and Seth. Here are some of the other sides.

This is just like Bro. Darrington to place himself at the kids' table! 

Alex just ate chips and potato salad. And yes, he is wearing a Santa costume.

Chillin' out afterwards, always my favorite part. 

Oh, and how did the turduckin turn out, you ask? Really, quite good. It was really moist and you could taste all the different meats inside of it. But, it did take a lot of time and cost more. So, I think it will be a rare occasion when we make it again. The best part of the day was just getting together with everyone and being together. I love fun friends and family!!

Then not too long after that was the Ward Christmas Chalet, which Misty was in charge of with Melanie and I helping. It was a huuge job, but it all went soo great! I am just kicking myself that I didn't get pictures of the decorations. The whole theme was a gingerbread/ candy wonderland. The centerpieces looked like big suckers and lollipops and there were large gingerbread boys and girls all around and big candy canes. We had at least 4 full sized Christmas trees and a gazillion little ones, with soooo many other decorations, hung on the walls, in each cormer, on the stage, everywhere. We brought in all the velvet chairs and had big fake presents and lights everywhere and poinsettieas on the piano and it was absolutely magical. I don't think I have ever seen it that full- and we didn't rent a thing!! We either made it or brought it. (Misty and I both have a ton of Christmas decorations and we combined with the other ward, too, which was great!)

We really shook things up this year and had it for all ages, instead of 16 and over. It was still Sunday dress and we had a place set up on the stage for families to get their pictures all taken together.

We had two tables for appetizers and there were lots, thank goodness! We left them out all evening and people came back to it throughout the night.  We also had someone playing Christmas music on the piano throughout the night.

This was behind the scenes. The other ward serves us and we serve them the next night. It is always really fun to trade off with them and they are really great! 

I was so glad Mommy and Seth were there, but mostly Doc!! We flew him in from Las Vegas to oversee our kitchen and we looved him for it! He was so great! Misty thought it was so cool and kept telling people, "We're flying in our cook," in her smuggest voice.

Proof that Seth was there!! He helped us a ton!

 I wish that this would rotate! But this is Kattie and her friend Joe who were so totally wonderful and came dressed as Mr. and Mrs. Claus' cousins, from the South Pole. They were so funny and used funny accents and stayed in character all night, plus they did a skit, that added so much fun to the night!! Kattie said soo many kids told them their Christmas lists for them to give to Santa! 

 See, I did sit down at one point, at least.

We had a table set up for people to bring their gingerbread houses to display.

 For dinner we had appetizers, then caesar salad with grapes and apples on the side, and then lasagna with green beans with onions and bacon and garlic bread, and then a dessert buffet table with all kinds of different desserts on it from the stores and that people brought. It was all soo super tasty!!

For entertainment we had the skit from Kattie and Joe, then we had the choir from Idaho Falls high school, who were really good. Then the Bishopric was going to do a special reading of the Christmas story from the Book of Mormon and the Bible, but it was getting late fast, so we decided to skip it and get right to what everyone really wanted.

 SANTA!!!!! It was soo fun to see the kids reactions when he came out! They had all the kids gathered up around the front and asked them if they were good this year, etc. Almost funner than seeing the kids was seeing the older people there watching the kids! A lot of them probably don't get to see that very often any more. In fact, I had comments from people later that that was really fun for them to see.

 He was a great Santa and took time with each kid and they each got a sack of candy. Yea!!  

 I thought it was such a fun night and just seemed like a great Ward Christmas Party. There was a lot of good food, and lot of fun people, and Santa. What more could you ask for? Maybe just better pictures of how great it all looked, too!!