A Thankful Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving came and quickly passed by this year- so that was sad...it seems as though I hardly get to enjoy the holiday, because of all the Christmas hoopla going on at the same time- don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and all that comes along with it, but it can overshadow the "Thankful Thanksgiving" for me...
I saw a slogan for St. Jude's the other day, and I really like it and would love to keep it going year round in our house- it's called "Thanks and Giving"....tonight for FHE we talked about giving rather than receiving and how it is nice to give thanks daily for all that we have. That isn't easy to do for an adult, sometimes, let alone children. But we expect a lot out of our kids, so we helped them understand, and we set up this fun "Countdown to Christmas" craft that will help us this month:
On the back of each number there is a service activity that we can do as we remove the days counting down to Christmas. The kids are very excited. I have to say that I do love that Thanksgiving is near Christmas, because they seem to remain in the "thanks and giving" spirit. Well, I try to, anyway! (All good ideas are stolen, by the way, and this one came from this blog that I follow :thebargainjargon.com) For ours, I google image searched the numbers and then copied them to a word document and then cut them out and pasted them on card stock- the entire activity took about an hour- the kids loved it! Here are a few close-ups too:

Anyway, back to Thanksgiving itself: Dana and I were fortunate enough to attend a Broadway Production on Wednesday night at the Theatre- "In the Heights"- and my parents kept the kids overnight, so we woke up without them on Thanksgiving! We had a blast at the play, by the way- it was really wonderful- amazingly talented performers and fantastic music! We took 7 girls from Dana's Spanish III class and a few parents too- they were so happy and very appreciative, since they didn't have to pay for tickets- The Spanish Club at their school funded it- so yeah, we were grateful too! We ventured over to my parents in the afternoon and finished preparing our portion of the big dinner- and then headed to Sean and Stephanie's to enjoy it all! Fabulous as usual, and this year my dad deep-fried the turkey and it was delicious. Afterward, I brought along this fun craft for the kiddos to make- another stolen idea- from Familyfun.com- but so fun for them: Here are some other random shots- I didn't take too many- I was exhausted by this time- we didn't eat until after 5, so the tryptophan was really kickin in!! The girls in their matching clothes from Aunt Liza
Getting these 6 together in a shot with everyone looking- yeah, harder than it looks, I promise!
Gotta love Oreo's
Thanksgiving 2009- so much to be thankful for- I could start listing, but it would never stop- I am truly blessed in my life-

Lights, Camera, Action!

2 things:

Friday night was New Moon- just can't say much about it- other than I am still drooling, and not over Jacob- but see, Edward is just, well, just perfect, if I may say so...it is the love story that I love, not that he isn't all that, because, well, he just is...and Jacob may have a fantastic body- yes, a fantastic build, but seriously, he's 17 and that is just wrong for me to love, but Edward, see, Edward is 23, so that is okay for me to gush over!! I just rambled on, didn't I? Edward sort of does that to me!! ha ha

7 of us lucky girls went- me, Wendy, Katie, MaryAnn, Ashley, Julie and Jill- it was so fun! Here we are afterward, still soaking it all in- before we dreamt about it all night and thought about it for days afterward....Notice how I am the one standing next to Edward!!

Last night we took the kiddos to see the Christmas lights at Easton for Family Night- it was the perfect night- not too cold, and certainly not that warm! They loved it and the lights did not disappoint! The tree is amazing!

A great start to kick off the Holiday Season!! I look forward to Thanksgiving on Thursday- another of my very favorite days of the year! Happy Thanksgiving to you!

66

I have been so busy this week, but I wanted to wish my Daddy a Happy 66th Birthday yesterday!! I did get a chance to call him, but I hope he knows I thought about him all day. I love him and become more grateful for him each day of my life. He never fails to make me smile when I talk to him or see him- and I love that his birthday falls right around the OSU vs Michigan game- it's always wonderful when OSU kicks the crap out of them- as will be the case tomorrow!! Happy Birthday, Dad- I love you!

Dancing Queen

Celeste started dance this year- as I mentioned before- a combo class, where she gets ballet, tap and tumbling- all in an hour! She loves this class- more than I can even tell you- she holds her breath until Tuesdays when she has dance- this girl is loving life right now- and I love that she loves it!
This week was "watch week" where we can go inside and see all that the class has worked on for the past couple of months....she was thrilled about this day, because Grandma was coming! It was so cute to watch these gems- Celeste is the youngest (and smallest) in her class, and it is her first year, but she holds her own with the older girls. They showed us some ballet:

Then we moved on to "tap"- where they did a routine to "Baby Face"- super adorable...wish I could've videoed it!






And finally, some "tumbling":

The end of the class is always fun, because they get stamps on their hands! It's the little things, honestly, the little things that Celeste loves:


I am glad she enjoys dance- she is one "girly girl" for sure- and as long as she is content with one class a week, I am good...girls are expensive!!