Archive for November 26th, 2009
Do y’all really need a list of what I’m most thankful for? It’s certainly not hard to guess. My family, my health, my job – I take none of these for granted – but Ava has been the cherry on top since Day 1 and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I am thankful for her every single day, from the time I go in to wake her up until I put her to bed, and especially on the nights that she still wants me to rock her to sleep. Sometimes the random nature of how we ended up parenting this particular child literally takes my breath away and makes me almost believe in things like God and Fate and Karma. I just hope I can remember that feeling even when she’s 16 and acting like most teenage girls do.
So, would you believe we don’t have even one picture from Thanksgiving? We cooked lots, J and I fought amongst ourselves a little (mainly battling over the oven), and for the first time in our house (and we’ve lived here for 7 years now) we had family here for Thanksgiving dinner. My brother and sister-in-law plus their three kids were coming down for a long weekend in and around our area so we had them over for dinner to break in our brand new (and huge) dining room table that can now seat 8-10 comfortably as compared to our previous table that I loved (a trestle table rescued from a church that I purchased from a little country auction in England for 50 or so quid) but was soooo not practical for seating more than 4 people.
We kept it simple and traditional and had way too much food (J needed leftovers, so he said), of course. A turkey AND a ham, green beans the way my mother makes them, Chuck’s Favorite Macaroni and Cheese (found on allrecipes.com), plenty of raw veggies, baked sweet potatoes, another side dish that I can’t even remember, and about a gazillion cookies that I made all by myself – ripping the packages open and placing them on the baking sheets was challenging but I managed to handle it even while J was overachieving and baking up homemade (for real) pumpkin pies.
It was nice. The food was good, if I do say so myself, and the conversation was too. The kids all behaved (no small feat for the two youngest – Ava and Mac) and a good time was had by all. Watching the kids together also made me a little sad that we don’t live closer to my family and that we don’t see them more often. It would be nice if Ava could have more of a relationship with her cousins than a few hours at weekend visits every few months.
But since it is what it is and we don’t live closer and probably never will – we enjoyed having them here and hope that the first time isn’t the last.