Thanksgiving

How thankful we are for God's blessing and grace. We are given so much more than we deserve. How thankful I am for my precious Scott and his amazing love as a husband and father. How thankful I am for my beautiful daughter and her laughter and love. How thankful I am for the little one to come, who will - Lord-willing - be with us next holiday season.

We had a pretty quiet Thanksgiving holiday. Scott's mom and I asked around with friends to make sure that everyone had a gathering to go to. It turned out that people did, so we ended up having a quiet meal with just Scott's parents and us.

Julie and I split up the food preparation, and as usual, left the turkey cooking to Scott's dad. I think I have a thing for the starches: I volunteered (again!) to cook the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. It's been four days since the big meal, and we still have leftovers of both kinds of potatoes, so maybe next year I can lighten up on the amount (or invite more people!).

Friday night, Adrianna had a sleepover at her grandparent's house. Scott and I had a nice date night, getting to go to dinner and a movie. But, when we were awoken at 11:30 pm with a phone call, we were both fearful that Adrianna was in trouble. It turned out Adrianna couldn't get to sleep, and Scott's parents wanted to know what they should do. We gave a few suggestions, and she fell asleep shortly after the call. We know Adrianna needs to practice having some nights away from us (especially with our trip to Ethiopia approaching), but she sure was tired the rest of the weekend!

Saturday, we went on our annual Christmas tree hunting trek. The location we decided was a good, secluded one last year, seemed to have been discovered in the meantime. There were loads of beautiful ponderosas, but very few spruce trees left. After making circles around our cars for an hour, we found two pretty prospects, and headed home.

This afternoon became designated Christmas decorating time. To be honest, Christmas decorating is one of my least favorite times of the year. The chaos that ensues in pulling out three boxes of decorations, trying to find places for them in my already crowded house, and put everything back together by dinner time, leaves me anxious and grouchy. Today, I tried my hardest to be mostly pleasant. Scott and Adrianna kept busy with decorating the tree, so that I could focus on the others. I also decided to part with half a box of decorations, in an effort to make this year and future years less stressful, and more focused on the true reason for Christmas: Christ!

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