Thankful.

This year I am thankful for many, many things. But most of all family.
We hosted Thanksgiving dinner in our home this year. Jerome was called out to work an 8pm to 8am shift both Wednesday and Thursday night. Savannah and I spent the evening making a last minute trip to the grocery store and stayed up late baking. We made two pumpkin pies, the stuffing (prepped but not baked), deviled eggs and a cake (thanks to the help of Paula Dean for that one). Katie and Spencer both fell asleep long before we started baking the pumpkin pies. Natalie loves to be in the kitchen, cooking, stirring, baking whatever needs to be done (except of course the dishes). After we put the pumpkin pies in the oven, I was busy cleaning up the kitchen and happened to look over and see Natalie asleep on the hardwood floor, dressed in her apron still, laying next to Molly. She made it through getting her pie in the oven, which I will say she did very good, she made this one all on her own.


My parents drove out early Thanksgiving morning to make sure to get the turkey in the oven. My sister's and I were opting this year for an already made turkey, but mom insisted we have a "real" turkey. Mom was prepping the fresh turkey getting it ready to put in the oven, when I heard Savannah yell "What is that?", it was a few small feathers, both her and I looked at each other and snurled up our noses. Mom's reply to our reaction, "Be glad you didn't have to bake a turkey in the old days, when you had to go out and get one and defeather it yourself!". Yes, I can say that is one thing I am definitely thankful for.

Mom called us all in the kitchen, because we all four sisters have complained about not being able to make a good gravy, she wanted to teach us how she makes her gravy.

We had a lot of wonderful tasting food to be thankful for!

Savannah putting the finishing touches on her deviled eggs before we sat down to eat.

Paris found my chalkboard I keep in the dining room and wrote this sweet message with a little piece of chalk.

With all the baking and cooking the house was getting a bit warm so we opened up the door on the front porch. I guess Molly could smell the food we were making and was wanting to come in, but one look at the number of people and the chaos and she quickly made herself at home on the front porch.

Little Caleb could smell all the food and was ready to eat too...

We all sat down, held hands and thanked God for all the blessings we are given. My dad was a little tearful saying the prayer, I know since my grandpa passed he has been very thankful for our family, I'm sure he was missing him this day. It was a beautiful prayer. We managed to seat eight adults, two high chairs and five children with two tables. We were certainly close this Thanksgiving dinner.
The stuffing I made didn't last long. I found a recipe for it years ago, made it one Thanksgiving, and since then it has been one of the favorites as we gather around the table.

My sister Savannah and her youngest, Caleb.

It was a wonderful day. We spent time with family, we baked together and laughed together. We watched the Macy's day parade with a cup of coffee. It was a day to be thankful for.
Now if I could just be thankful for the dishes.....I am thankful I have dishes to cook with, bake with, eat with......but it takes a good bit to say I am thankful for washing dishes (only when there are this many).

Sunny Florida Vacation, Day 1

We have planned and saved for this trip for quite some time now. The kids have been looking forward to this vacation and flying on an airplane for the first time.
We left cold, windy and rainy weather and arrived to warm, sunny skies in Florida.

We were freezing walking out to board the plane, but very anxious to get there... you can see that here.....

We boarded the airplane, put our bags away and settled into our seats. Katie decided to sit with Macaiah behind Jerome, Natalie and myself. I turned around in my seat with my camera to take a peek at Katie while everyone else was still boarding. I giggled as I saw her bright eyes and grin from ear to ear. Needless to say she was beyond excited and ready for the airplane to take off down the runway.

Natalie however takes after me. You could see the nervousness in her as she was looking out her little window. And if that didn't give it away......her asking me if her seatbelt was tight enough at least ten times in five minutes probably gave it away. She kept tugging and pulling and tugging and pulling some more on her seat belt, "Do you think it's tight enough Mommy?".

I had her snuggle up with me and we started playing around with my camera. "Let's get some pictures of us together on the plane to remember this day" I told her. She was happy and we snapped away.

Before long it was time for take off. Natalie gripped my hand with her little hand and buried her head into my shoulder. We made it through take off and she calmed down. She took her camera Grandma gave her for the trip and started taking pictures of the clouds.

And then she took one with my camera of the pretty blue sky and the fluffy white clouds.

Spencer and Noah didn't seem nervous the entire flight. They put their headphones in their ears and listened to their Ipods most of the way there. I did catch Spencer leaning forward to look out the window at the earth below a few times.

We arrived safely in Florida, found a taxi and made our way to our hotel. We spent the rest of the day getting settled into the hotel. The kids swam in the hotel pool (it was to cold for us adults) and played checkers and ping pong by the pool. Then later that evening we ordered pizza, took our showers and climbed into bed to get plenty of sleep for our big day in Disney the next morning.