Happy Thanksgiving

I am currently stuffed to the gills. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with our other 2 family friends in the neighborhood plus a handful of others- 13 adults and 6 kids. I had my fill of turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, stuffing and 3 kinds of pies. We miss family of course at this time of year though and wish we could be close.

There are SO many things I am thankful for this year, but some of the top of the list are my Dad's health after a big scare with his tumor this spring, my own health after a few unknowns this year, our new home and neighbors, who have become really good friends, Austin's beginning to really pray and seem to understand a lot about the Lord in really sweet ways, his wonderful preschool situation and the joy both boys bring us daily. Thank you Lord for your many gifts!

Here are some snapshots of the day. The pictures say it better than any more words...

My handsome little men! So cute, i had to take a picture this morning after getting them dressed. We SKYPed with my parents and Bop- my Dad- had a "work shirt" ( as Austin calls it) and a sweater vest on. Austin thought that was pretty cool.

This morning we went to the Staege's (our hosts and neighbors). The kids all watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving video (which is very informative, by the way- the Mayflower episode). Everyone ranges in age from 1 to 4.5. They were clearly pretty into it, which helped us momma's get some cooking done. We went home for naps and came back around 4 for the big meal.

The kids busy chowing down.
Bennett pretty much ate a piece of cornbread and sweet potato casserole. Oh and cranberry sauce. He loves to eat but has gotten rather picky lately. He didn't even really like his dessert (which was fine, because I ate it instead!)

Austin and Bree tried to break the wishbone...but couldn't do it. Then Austin tried it with Chris and finally it cracked and Austin then broke it apart. He technically "won" I guess. Mostly, he saw Snoopy and Woodstock do it on the video and wanted to try it. Austin and Bree have had lots of fun playing all sorts of creative things...tonight we went to the playroom, where they had been for hours. They were playing "heaven"- they were in heaven, it had a pool and Elmo. Hmmm.

Bennett and Jesh wrestling. Bennett loves to wrestle- usually he tried to pin Austin, who whines and wants me to make him stop. Jesh was a pretty willing partner tonight though and they had fun. Bennett kept wrestling him again and again...fortunately, Jesh was a good sport.

Family picture...this was the best one we got. Austin had the threat of losing dessert if he didn't look or made a mean face. He said this was smiling, but I am not sure I agree.

Here are our next-door neighbors, the Hunemullers. We are so thankful for them! We talk about them a lot, so I thought you might like to see them all in person.

These are our other fun neighbors and hosts of our dinner, the Staeges. We are really enjoying getting to know them this year and thankful for them. Notice all the very German sounding names in our neighborhood (and another family with a German name comes back in January). Also, all four of these German husbands LOVE Lord of the Rings. WE wives think its pretty funny :).

Happy Thanksgiving! We miss you all family and wish we could be there. But hopefully this long post will help a little.