Castonguay Christmas

Tradition used to be that Mom's side of the family would get together on the Eve of every holiday. We've started meeting the Sunday before Christmas to avoid working around different church schedules on Christmas Eve and for it to be a more convenient time, but this theory didn't work out this time. Between work obligations, vacations planned, and the flu running rampant, we were missing 20+ people. This crowd was very mellow and quiet. It was definitely an unusual Castonguay gathering. I guess we know who the loud half are now!

This is Grandma's first Great Great Granddaughter A, who is quite the entertainer these days with all of her facial expressions and attitudes. These pictures were taken AFTER her mouth had been wiped with a napkin. What a mess!

And the second Great Great Granddaughter...

A has frequently been at my Grandma's house when my Mom is there visiting so she knows Mom well and is a fan of "Aunt Jan"...

Sweet seeing Grandma playing with baby B

Love those smiles!

Thanksgiving

I do not have that many photos from Thanksgiving because I was too busy visiting with all of my family and enjoying the bountiful meals, but here's a few worth documenting. As usual we celebrated with my Mom's side of the family on Thanksgiving Eve and then with my Dad's side on Thanksgiving Day.

It often seems like an overstatement to say that there are always new babies on the Castonguay side of my family, but the truth is, there really is at least one new baby born in the family every year! The new baby this year is Bria, who is the daughter of my second cousin and granddaughter to my cousin. It's crazy that my cousin who is only a few years older than me is already a grandmother!

Grandma and her newest Great Great Granddaughter

All 5 generations

Mom with her mother and 5 brothers

Enjoying time with my cousins!

My sweet Grandma who is still getting along well for a 92 year old!

Unfortunately, no people pictures from Mawmaw's house the following day. All I captured was the food. We love the food but the family time is what I treasure the most. Even though most all of our family lives so close, it still seems that we do not get together very often. 

Mawmaw makes so much food that I can only take the tiniest portions so as not to get uncomfortably full before we even get to the desserts. I also have given up eating some of the dishes that aren't on the top of my list. Why waste space in my stomach that could be filled with my favorites?! So...the plate below is probably missing at least another 5 foods that I didn't even try. 

All of the ridiculously yummy desserts! It's a good thing that it's not optimal (for my stomach) to eat these because if I didn't have that restriction, it would be easy to overdo it!

Grandma's 92nd Birthday

As I probably say every year, ALL birthdays for Grandma are BIG birthdays at this point. So...we always have a big family celebration. Thankfully, Uncle Johnny and Aunt Bev are gracious to open their home to the huge gang and host a nice lunch for Grandma. Everyone brings one of her favorite side dishes to share to go along with chicken on the grill. Despite Grandma's very sweet demeanor, she makes it very clear how disappointed she is if one of her favorite dishes doesn't make it to her party. In fact, that happened this year when somehow Watergate Salad was not on the menu. I believe she pouted for a good 5 minutes! At the ripe old age of 92, I suppose I can understand being set in your ways.  All we do is chuckle.

As always, she loves her large family singing "Happy Birthday" to her and the fact that it means it's time to enjoy a big piece of cake! 

Speaking of cake, here's the family's newest cupcake. There literally is a new baby almost every year and it probably has been this way since the 70s (at least it feels this way)! There's always a little cutie to hold at family functions. This one is my youngest cousin's sweet girl, Charlotte. 

When the Castonguay family is involved, there's enough players to have a cornhole tournament. At least that's how it looked when I walked out back. 

One of the most enjoyable parts of the party was watching Grandma open her cards and gifts. She read each and every word on each card aloud. You can tell how much she enjoys all the attention and love.   

Yep...at the age of 92, she's so excited about her very own tablet and learning how to use it!

My Mom and her Mom

All of Mom's 5 brothers made it to the celebration. This is #3 of the 5. 

I love how Grandma is holding both of their hands in this picture.

Grandma and her newest Great Granddaughter. I was so excited to get them both looking my direction and smiling at the same time. 

Celebrations

 April and May are often full with celebrations and family time. Because I am on a roll with catching up (at least it feels like it), I thought I would combine some of these birthday celebrations all together in one post.

Grandma turned 91!

Mom with her Mom and Ayden (Grandma's Great Great Granddaughter)

I can't get enough of this cutie!

Then a belated celebration for mine when I returned from Cabo. As my Dad often comments, birthdays for me have always lasted a month. I usually deny it but then chuckled when I got 4 different birthday treats.  This was one of my favorites, though. Gluten free cupcakes from Extraordinary Cupcakes in Williamsburg. The coffee one is so delish!

 

3 gluten free just for me

And then Mom's birthday, which fell on Memorial Day. Her birthday usually falls on the holiday weekend so there's usually some celebrating on the water.

We had a great lunch for Mom on the boat...lots of fresh fruit, homemade potato salad, homemade Texas Caviar, and dogs on the grill. There's just something about eating on the boat that makes meals all that more enjoyable.

Because Spencer often needs entertainment, we thought we'd stick him on the tube on the ride home. He also has TONS of energy and is running wide open all the time (with the exception of when he is sleeping). So...tubing was the perfect way to end the day. Or so we thought. I don't usually like to make a habit of laughing at somebody else's pain, but in this case, it was unavoidable. That boy was so scared and we could not help but crack up...only because we knew he was totally safe and my Dad wasn't going to be wild with him. 

 At the point where my Dad turned and he went over the wake, he was not happy!!

The funniest part was that he never really loosened up or started smiling, but he also didn't want to get off (even when we offered).

 

Hayley saw that Spencer was having so much fun (or not) that she couldn't pass up a chance to tube...even in her clothes (because she didn't have a bathing suit on)! Her reaction was slightly different than his...

 Calm, cool, and collected now that he was back on the boat

Because we had had such a great lunch and it's always a bummer to have dessert when you're too full to really enjoy it, we decided to have birthday cake and homemade ice cream for dinner!

  Carrot cake is one of Mom's favorites (and mine, too) and I have the best homemade recipe. Of course, it has flour in it so I haven't made it in years. I wanted to make something special for Mom and could only think of the best cake I know of. I took a huge chance and substituted the flour called for in the recipe with a new gluten free flour mix that Trader Joe's is selling. Sometimes you can't do an even substitution with GF products (because it will not turn out right) so I went out on a limb on this one. And the cake even looked quite different when it finished baking so I was nervous.

We make it impossible to hide your age!

 

The cake was a huge crowd pleaser (Dad couldn't even tell that it wasn't the original recipe) and the ice cream disappeared in no time. We should do dessert for dinner more often!