GIVING THANKS!

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We did! This was our 3rd Thanksgiving away from family. The 1st we were not quite sure what to do. Do we cook all of our favorites which is way too much to eat? What time do we eat? Do we cook dressing like my mama or your mama? And the list goes on. So we decided that year that we would cook all our favorites and just eat it until it was gone and that we would divide the cornbread and I could do dressing my mama's way and he could do it his mama's way. You know marriage is all about compromise but you just can't compromise on the dressing! The first year was neat but lonely at the same time. I remember we sat down to eat and I burst into tears! I realized though after that day was over that we were starting our own traditions and that we were making our own memories. I also realized the importance of slowing down and really giving thanks. We love all getting in the kitchen and cooking together. All of us! It takes a while longer but we have a great time together. Last year we had just moved so we unpacked our kitchen first so that we could have a big Thanksgiving dinner. This year we continued our traditions and we added a new one. I have always wanted us to write down what we are thankful for but we have never done that so this year we did. Aaron, Elleigh, and I each wrote down 4 things we were most thankful for and why and read them together and I am going to put them in a book and add our lists to them each year. It was interesting to see that A and I said so many of the same things. We have 4 reasons to be very thankful but we included those into 1! Our friends Kevin, Kristi, and their daughters Taylor and Kendall invited us to have dinner with their family and for that we were very grateful. We took a lot of our food to their house to share and they shared with us. We had a great time! It means a lot when you have friends who are sweet enough to open up their homes and family time for you to join. Another reason to be thankful! I didn't cry this Thanksgiving but I came very close. My sister Rhonda called and she was saying something to my nephew Zeke about us and he said are they coming to Grandmama's and she said in a little while (meaning a month) and he yells yea I get to play with Sallie and Elleigh and Lizzie and Rhonda says well not today and he starts crying. I told her she I could not listen to that. That got me! Bless his heart! He is also convinced we are going to the beach when we get to AL for Christmas and we can't convince him otherwise so I hope he is just so glad to see us he forgets about the beach! Another thing I love about Thanksgiving is that it marks the beginning of the holiday season. For the next 4 weeks we will have lots of parties to go to and have fun celebrating this wonderful time of year and then we get to go home for Christmas!

Everyone pitching in to cook!

A few reasons to be very THANKFUL!