A Recap of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving... my favorite holiday :)

It kind of snuck up on me rather quick this year, but I still remembered in time to grab a tree branch for our thankfulness tree (... looking at the picture, the white vase looks kind of barren, I'll have to do something with it next year!). The boys loved adding leaves to it, and Aiden has even commented a few times that he can't wait til Thanksgiving time next year. I told him we can still be thankful, even without clothespinning leaves to a tree!  I also got smart this year and laminated my leaves to make them reusable, thanks to my "teacher's appreciation" laminator gift from my Mom!

I'm bummed I didn't write down what they were thankful for in the past, but this year I did, and feel free to skip down, but I'm putting it up here for future memory purposes! (I didn't write down the days they said them, and forgot to always put down who said what, so they are listed alphabetically).

1. Airplanes
2. America
3. Answered prayers
4. Beautiful days
5. Bible
6. Books
7. BSF
8. Clock
9. Clothes
10. Eternal life
11. Family
12. Food
13. Friends
14. Furniture
15. Grocery stores and restaurants
16. God
17. House
18. Imago Dei (church)
19. (Jehovah-Rapha)... God healing Liam's arm
20. Jesus
21. Light
22. Money
23. Pacifiers (Liam said this one for Callum)
24. Relatives
25. Toys
26. Trees
27. Visitors

Like I stated at the beginning of the post, I love Thanksgiving. I love the food. I love getting together with family. And I love that it is a mostly unadulterated holiday focused on God, not spoiled by the materialism of the world (although Black Friday has encroached upon it's evening!). So I was a bit bummed when I first learned that we wouldn't be going anywhere for Thanksgiving. Not only was I missing out on family time, but also all the yummy food!

Well, my dad was kind enough to sacrifice my mother to be with us for Thanksgiving. Danya was on call that weekend and couldn't go home, so she was with us too, and a Muslim family that we've been reaching out to, have befriended and I invited two months earlier to spend the evening with us let me know the night before that they could make it too (don't worry, I wasn't the only one grocery shopping for extra supplies at 11:30pm Wednesday night!)... so I had my family!

Now all I needed was the food. The turkeys all looked huge, and rather intimidating. And even though my sister has made two now (she gets them free for being an awesome employee) and said they were easy...

... well, I could not fathom doing that AND trying to make all the other traditional sides that I wanted to have... especially since I hadn't made a single one of the recipes before, because it has always been potluck-style in our family gatherings.

So shhhhhh, don't laugh... but I only had a turkey breast... and it was in the... crockpot.

But it was juicy and no one knew any better, because it was carved before it arrived at the table!

What else did we have??
Cranberry sauce, party potatoes, sweet potatoes (made the way my mom grew up-sorta), green beans (they were supposed to be wrapped in bacon, but with the Muslim family that was out, so they were just steamed instead), corn casserole, homemade rolls, a festive salad (yet another memory of our wonderful Livonia church), stuffing and a gravy that did not want to thicken until the next day.  And I had been craving pecan pie, but since my husband wanted pumpkin, we did both in nontraditional ways. And of course my husband's sparkling juices... :)

And God took care of us, as besides the gravy, it all turned out wonderful... with lots of leftovers for me to enjoy and get my fill of for the next year! So many of you were praying... for my first time meal, for the spiritual warfare that I knew was probably taking place unseen... and all I can say is Thank You!!! His presence and peace were definitely felt.

 We had to move the table to the living room to make room for it... and even then it was a cramped- never thought our IKEA table would be so filled!

Danya brought ice cream for the pies... and 3 different boxes of popsicles just in case for the kids... and of course the only three kids that had popsicles each wanted a different flavor. 

Danya took a picture of our guests before they left. They are from Bangladesh originally, and his father was actually in town visiting for a few months. ... pray for them!

 Callum eyeing the pies afterwards...

 I got distracted from the crying... the two doctors were trying to yank out Liam's loose tooth. I think they finally realized he was too worked up... and it fell out on it's own the next day. :)

 While we were distracted...

 Callum loves Danya... here they are dancing together...

 And then when we are once again distracted, he pushed a chair back to the newly placed pies...

... but Nana was just a tad bit quicker, and he was only able to grab the crust! :)