Thanksgiving Day

I'm so glad we take a special day each year to thank the Lord for all he has done for us.  We don't do that often enough!  We always have plenty to be thankful for!  We had a great Thanksgiving celebration although we were disappointed that Nanamom, Heather, and George could not join us. We actually celebrated a day early so Rebekah could spend the whole day with us. She is working this evening, even though it is Thanksgiving today.

Andrew and Elisabeth came over with Lena and that made the holiday a lot of fun.  We had dinner about 4pm after Andrew got off work.  I put the turkey in at 7am which was an hour later than I usually do, and had just dropped off to sleep again when the phone rang. It was Matthew!  He put me on the speaker phone and I talked to him and Amanda. I also chatted a little bit with Colin. He's growing up so fast! It was good to visit with them via the phone.

Elisabeth brought the sweet potato casserole and Rebekah made the green bean casserole. The boys did a lot of the miscellaneous chores and dishwashing which made it a lot more of a holiday for me. Everyone enjoyed the dinner but no one enjoyed it quite as much as Lena when she got her first taste of stuffing. It was so funny! If she doesn't like something she's being fed, she doesn't make a sound. She just purses those lips tightly together and won't let the spoon in.  If she likes it, she opens her mouth as wide as is humanly possible!  She is just getting to eat bits of people food now and when she first tasted stuffing today, she actually made mmm-mmm! sounds!  She did it over and over again and we all just about died with laughter.  She could not get enough!

After dinner, we went for a long walk and Rebekah rode Tex.  That's not as 'leisurely' as it might sound--Riding Tex is hard on the leg muscles.  Plus, he always wants to go home after about five minutes.  Sometimes he balks at things in the road, and then she just pulls his head to one side and makes him ride in circles which is a form of discipline. She actually rode him bareback and without the bit, but he pretty obedient in spite of that.  He does spook a little along the trail, but this is probably the fifth time she's taken him down the rode and he's getting used to all the sights and sounds along the way.

Lena looked so cute in her little pink coat and loved the walk.  She kicked her little feet in the stroller all the way to the mailboxes and back.  That's about a mile by the way. The weather is cool but I was pretty warm by the time we got home.  We opened the windows to cool off and then had pie. We had pecan, apple crumble and mince.  Too bad nobody but me likes mince pie...I always have to eat it all by myself!  Of course, it takes me about a week to finish, but it sure tastes lovely! 

We watched the new remake of Godzilla afterwards.  At first I thought it was going to be some awful gory show, and in a way it was...but the cliff hangers came one after the other and finally I quit worrying about whether or not anyone was going to get hurt or not.  It was a very well done remake and actually made the story seem plausible...it had a 1920's 'flapper' feel to it that made me think of Sky Captain but it was also pretty funny in a way--it was pretty sci-fi.  There were a couple of really graphic violent scenes which the boys warned me about.  (Ok...what sense does that make...my kids screening movies for ME? Oh.. mom...you better skip that scene..it'll be too much for you! Right.)  I'm glad to know the boys are looking out for me. :o)

Lena was getting tired pretty early and since Andrew and Ebeth have been visiting quite a bit and still had several days of visiting to go, they decided to get her home before the movie was over. They are coming back on Sat. evening and then we will have a big bonfire...there's always a need to burn something around here!

Rebekah was nursing a cold and had to work the next day, so she went to bed early. Tim and the boys played another group adventure game on the computer...and I blogged a bit about the perfect Thanksgiving dinner on my homemaking blog.  Perfect means...easy, delicious, and not something you eat every day leaving time for visiting and playing with the grandchildren ( I have a blog with lots of homemaking how to's and good advice for new homemakers. 0

All in all, it was a great Thanksgiving Day!

Busy Days

This week will be a busy one for me and the kids. While Christian is busy doing school and band practice and when he doesn't need me, I will hopefully get all the laundry put away that we have washed over the last week.  It's been 'collecting' to say the least!

Then I'll have a little more fun (if it's sewing related--it's fun!) because I'll be cutting yards and yards of fabric and separating it into 'packets' for my church friends and daughters to sew into nativity costumes.

I've already made seven butcher paper copies of the child's size of patterns and will also have to do that for the adult size.Tim headed off to Houston to meet a client and I forgot to

buy more butcher paper, so I won't get to do that till he gets home. Then I'll be dividing them up into 'packets'

for Kristy to pass out at church. She wants to have a live nativity in December in her neighborhood, but needed my 'expertise' to plan out the making of 18 costumes or more.

We've already spent quite a bit of time planning and shopping, and I hope to finish up my part of the project today.        

In the meantime, Rebekah and Jacob are driving to Brenham to participate in "mock trial' practice.

Jacob was chosen to play the part of a Cajun witness. He's working on an accent at the moment. He's a ham and will enjoy being a less than cooperative witness.

He will be filling in for two parts today and tomorrow for members who can't be there. Rebekah graciously agreed to drive him up and back (4 hour round trip!).

Last Saturday, I spent several hours with friends learning how to make your own greeting cards.  Nov. isn't the best time, but I managed to squeeze out the extra time.  It was a lot of fun.

Tonight, we will all drive to Tomball for our monthly square dance held by our club the Grand Squares. Jacob is vice-president.

He and Rebekah just love it. Our whole family has graduated and can dance at any club we like. I wonder if I could squeeze in adding the ruffle to my purple square dance skirt?! That may be pushing the schedule a wee bit!

We also had another couple of exciting moments this week.

Christian started posting photographs of his favorite pictures at www.mipixx.blogspot.com 

and I wrote a new song and posted it to youtube.  It's at www.youtube.com/donnacrodgers.

You just never know what will be going on around here next!