A Very Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was awesome. Seriously awesome, but we'll get to that in a minute.

First, let's talk about Abby's pigtails. I thought I had done a pretty decent job and she looked absolutely precious. Greg came home for lunch and said, "Abby looks cute. I can teach you how to make her pigtails straighter if you want me to." In case you didn't know, his mom is a cosmetologist and he grew up watching her cut and style hair in their basement. He has forgotten more about hair than I will ever know. It's all good. I can't wait for him to style Abby's hair for her first prom. :)

Garrett is really into Toy Story 3 these days and loves his Mr. Potato Heads.Every now and again you snap a picture with your cheap (relatively speaking) point and shoot camera that makes you say, "Wow!" This was one of them. Go ahead and tell me you don't love that face...and that hair.This isn't really a WOW picture, but it will still make you smile.Here's a nice back view of Abby's crooked pigtails. Apparently I need more practice. Let's talk Thanksgiving. I love to cook and consider myself a fairly decent chef, but I have to admit I have never cooked a turkey. Thanksgiving dinner was at our house this year, so it was time for me to learn. We had two turkeys, so I decided to cook a "practice turkey" the day before. As a novice, I didn't realize it would take a good week to thaw the 20 lb. turkey I bought the day before I needed to cook it. OOPS! I did some online research and watched a few YouTube videos and felt fairly confident in my ability cook a frozen turkey. I was just getting geared up and ready to cook when Brian and Cathy arrived for a visit. I had no idea they were such expert turkey roasters, but they took right over with lots of tips and tricks and I was a happy girl. Brian was hilarious and insisted on taking my picture to document my first turkey. So here it is...yes, I'm wearing pink sweats and no make-up and it was well after noon. Don't judge me, okay? It was one of those days. It was a jammie day all-around at our house. Garrett also enjoyed spending the day in his dog jammers and eating snowballs.The girls had fun playing upstairs in Garrett's new toybox. (Thank you toDani for the awesome hand-me-down.) Some of our favorite cousins, The Ferguson Family, showed up Wednesday night just as were carving into the "practice turkey." We had a lovely night-before-Thanksgiving feast and had no idea just how handy that practice turkey would turn out to be.As if the night before wasn't fun enough, we had an absolutely awesome Thanksgiving day. Greg took all the girls on horse rides and Aunt Sandy even drove Grandpa Willy's skidsteer. (Those photos are not on my camera, but I will post them when I track some down.) Abby loved chowing down on the appetizers and was especially fond of this 7-Layer dip. The soon-to-be very proud papa showed off Gini's ultrasound pictures. Of course, Aunt Sandy cried and her daughters all laughed. The crew thoroughly enjoyed our Thanksgiving feast. When it was time to eat, our turkey was far from done, so we just warmed the practice turkey and life was good. It was even better when we carved the "real turkey" later that evening and got to eat the whole meal again. We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon with movies and football while the kids played. Abby is really taken with Uncle Eric these days. She talks about "Eric" quite frequently and blows kisses while saying, "Where Eric go? Bye bye Eric." Sorry to the rest of the uncles, I'm sure she loves you, too. :) We were thrilled to be invited to a Thanksgiving/Christmas party with some of Willy's cousins on the Phillips side. (His dad died when he was just a baby, so this is a side of the family we don't know very well and see very often. Thanks to the wonders on Facebook, Willy and Greg have reconnected with many of them and it has been fun getting to know them.)

The kids' favorite part of the party was definitely seeing the Jolly Elf himself. Annabelle butted herself right up to the front of the line and was very excited with the candy cane Santa gave her.

Abby was more interested in the cinnamon bear in her hand than Santa. She'll figure it out one of these days.We saw Santa the day before at the mall, so Garrett didn't think he needed to see Santa Claus again. He changed his mind when he saw the candy canes and realized he had to talk to Santa to get one. The day before, I asked Garrett what he was going to ask Santa for. He told me, "Some toys, an Angel Moroni, and some lights on our roof." I was a bit relieved when he actually just told Santa he wanted a choo-choo train. Phew!

I have thoroughly enjoyed this Thanksgiving season and the anticipation of spending time with our families and just enjoying being together while eating yummy food . I have always been more of a Let's-Get-Thanksgiving-Over-So-We-Can-Celebrate-Christmas person, but it was different this year. The trials we've endured the past few years must have made me grow up a bit, because I was perfectly content with just enjoying Thanksgiving and not looking ahead to Christmas. I found myself annoyed with all the early Christmas decorations and could have cared less about the Black Friday sales. (I will admit I did listen to a Christmas album or two...)

So many times this month my thoughts reflected back to last Thanksgiving. Greg had just been released from the hospital for the second time and we were just so tired and worn out. We were obviously very grateful he was home, but I was worried about him and it had just been an all-around rough year and I was overwhelmed. Trust me, I know lots of people have it MUCH worse and we are very blessed, but it still had been tough for us.

This year, I also felt absolutely overwhelmed--but in a completely different way. We have been blessed abundantly this year and it was nice to have a holiday to remind us to be grateful for it. Greg is healthy, I made it through the year with no broken bones, Garrett and Abby are so much fun, our little construction business is growing, we have wonderful families and were blessed with two darling new nieces this year, we have great friends, we love our Church callings, and I could go on forever. Greg has always said Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday, and I am finally beginning to understand why.