Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving actually began on Wednesday with a Thanksgiving feast at school. Parents were invited to attend Chapel followed by a family feast pot-luck style. It was a great time! I was able to leave about 2:00, as all but two of my kids were gone. We then went to the zoo - a great day to go as nobody was there. The weather was great also. Then it was birthday dinner for Doug - at Famous Daves B-B-Q. After that it was a trip to Liquor Barn to buy wine and other beverages, followed by Thanksgiving worship at Church. Craig, Amber & Amelia got into town around 10:00, but since they were staying in a hotel we did not get to see them until Thursday.

Thank the Lord for family and for fun times with them. Yesterday we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with Doug's mom, brother, sister-in-law, & daughter. It was great to be able to relax and enjoy time with them. Putting cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents together is priceless. For lunch I made a 22 lb. turkey, two kinds of stuffing, two kinds of sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, 4 kinds of bread machine bread, 2 kinds of cranberries, gravy... and then came dessert - a pumpkin gingerbread cake, pumpkin cake, and pumpkin pie. We played some games of Uno Attack, Candyland, Miss Liberty (an American Girl Game), as well as working on a Flat Emily scrap book (Emily's homework assignemnt which grandma had helped her out with - ever hear of Flat Stanley, well Emily sent grandma a Flat Emily to take on an adventure). The boys went to get our Christmas stuff out of storage, so after a dinner of turkey noodle or turkey rice soup (I was able to do both as we had two turkey carcases - one from our Thanksgiving, and one from a turkey I cooked for school's Thanksgiving feast. For dessert we had pumpkin ice cream pie - imported from Iowa on dry ice.

The kids, Karen & Amber made sticker turkeys then we all played pin the hat on the turkey. That made for a laughable memory. Emily read a prayer she had written at school while Michael read one he had written at home on the computer. Both really did well - I wish I had recorded it on the video camera.

I want to list a few things I am thankful for this year. It has been a busy but wonderful year:

* the birth of a healthy neice - Naomi
* finishing up graduate school - YEAH!!!
* healthy children
* enough money to meet needs, and even having some left over at the end of the month :)
* food, food, and more food ... too much as I have gained too much weight over the past year but I thank the Lord that I have had all that food I know so many do not have that blessing.
* technology - blogging, cell phones, computers, DVD players, CD players... WOW!
* a loving husband
* being close to family