kiwi Thanksgiving

We've just followed our new tradition of giving thanks for the children's birthparents on thanksgiving, and we also remembered the families of all the children we've fostered this year.
We were able to have a bigger do than usual as Beth and James are here from Sydney (this is instead of at Christmas) and some of James family came too.
We had twelve for lunch plus Isaac and 8 week old baby Malachi (James's nephew) and had turkey, ham and all the trimmings - including sweet potato and marshmallows (I used kumera which I think is the same as sweet potato - but perhaps I should have used orange kumera rather than white, and white marshmallows rather than pink which bled pink dye into it!)
James's mum Brenda had made pies for dessert, making a pumpkin pie with her American friend. The friend said that pumpkin pie is usually made by putting a tin of pumpkin pie filling into a ready made pastry case, but they weren't available in NZ so the pie had to be made from scratch.
It was a lovely time, all being together and encouraged us to clean the house too!