Thankful

Thankful.

 

I certainly have much for which to be thankful.

 

Four amazing children with tender hearts and energetic spirits.

 

A strong, growing marriage with a creative, passionate man that loves and follows God.

 

Most importantly, God who leads us into all sorts of unfamiliar territory and gives us the strength and courage to follow Him.

 

And so we celebrated Thanksgiving with gusto.  With pumpkin cheese pie, savory turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet yams, cornbread stuffing, and mashed potatoes.  With family game time and long conversations.

 

Thanksgiving activities haven't been the only things keeping us busy in my absence from this blog.

 

We have been homeschooling a lot and making great progress in the Beast's reading skills.

 

We have been planning up a storm for Christmas and getting all the gift shopping done.

 

We have officially left our church home of eight years and have been visiting other churches to see where God wants us to serve.

 

The Nerd has been fervently looking for a new job and has been up late every night, studying and practicing for long interviews and steeling himself against the disappointment of rejection.

 

And we have much to look forward to in the next month.

 

We get to spend the weekend with our close friends at the coast, children playing and adults enjoying meaningful conversations and time away from life's pressures.

 

Baby Girl is turning one year old; so of course we will be celebrating with much joy at a very pink party.

 

The kids and I will be making ornaments and focusing our attentions on the One we really celebrate at Christmas time by doing our Truth in the Tinsel activities along with our advent calendar.

 

We will be celebrating Christmas!  Enough said.

 

We will hopefully soon be settled in a new church home.

 

God is so good.  He is so faithful.

 

And we are thankful.

thankful

short and sweet today.

The Drama Queen was helping me make a "so grateful" book today, and it reminded me of the innumerable blessings, small and big, in my life.

so grateful for:

grilled cheese for lunch on a cold rainy day

sibling love

imaginative play

online shopping

surprise gifts in the mail

supportive friends

the last weeks of tummy kicks :)

the excitement of waiting for Little Sprout to make an appearance

funny things my kids say

libraries

the comfort of God's Word

the anticipation of leftover turkey sandwiches

spending time with my littles

spending time away from my littles (recharge the batteries!)

coffee. oh yes.

Art Project #5 - Thankful Turkeys

This week's project is in preparation for Thanksgiving coming up next week. You should already have all the materials on hand, and the steps are super easy!

Project Title: Thankful Turkeys

Materials Needed: white paper, crayons, scissors, glue stick, pencil or pen

Purpose: To practice coloring and cutting skills as well as express the things one is thankful for.

Aren't these just the cutest turkeys?

First, you will need to trace your child's hands and one foot on the white paper. (The photos show a turkey made from an adult's hand and footprints; of course a child's prints will be smaller.) Have your child color the foot shape brown for the turkey body and the hand shapes in multiple colors for the turkey feathers. Assist them in cutting out the three shapes.

Make the other shapes needed to complete the turkey. Three triangles colored yellow will serve as a beak and feet. Two skinny yellow rectangles will be the legs, and don't forget to cut out two little eyes and a wattle. (Googly eyes would be cute too if you have them on hand).

Using the glue stick, have your child glue the two hand shapes together as shown. Cut off the thumbs - they won't be necessary for the project.

Then, help your child glue the rest of the turkey together. The foot shape comes next as the turkey body, glued on top of the hand shapes. Next, glue the facial features to the turkey's head. Finally, glue the legs to the back of the turkey body and glue the feet on the ends of the legs.

If your child is old enough to write, have them write down eight things they are thankful for. Cut out the words and glue to the turkey feathers. Write "(Name) is thankful for" on a small circle of white paper and glue to the turkey's tummy.

Then of course, don't forget to display the resulting cute turkeys for your Thanksgiving celebration! Save them afterwards, as they will be permanent reminders of the size of your little one's hands and feet at this age. :)

Farewell November

I hope you all had a fantastic holiday weekend! We stayed busy for sure, and our activities included:

1. Eating! This comes rather naturally to me, of course. I inhaled my share and more of stuffing, turkey, cranberry sauce, and other yummy homemade goodies on both of our Thanksgivings. (yep, both! We celebrated it at the in-laws, on Thursday and then again at the grandparents' on Saturday)

2. Working. The Christmas rush has begun, and many people are hurrying to get their custom orders in time for Christmas gifts from The Framed Frog. Add to that a great Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale at The Framed Frog, and even more orders poured in. I'm just a little busy! (and by the way, you can still take advantage of the great deals today!)

3. Shopping. We decided to brave the hordes of crazy people and attend a Black Friday sale. We chose to go to Toys'R'Us at midnight and ended up standing behind 300 people or so for about thirty minutes before getting into the store. It was madness, but we got the coveted items (two scooters for the Drama Queen and the Beast, and a programmable Rocket from Little Einsteins for the Spud) and only waited in line to check-out for an hour. (haha, the dedication, the dedication!) We also counted it as our date night. :)

4. Decorating. Well, we started anyway. The Christmas tree is up and lopsidedly decorated with clumps of ornaments. The bottom is pretty much barren since the mighty Spud has a tendency to destroy anything remotely breakable. The nativity scene is also out and has been moved and rearranged several times by eager little hands. Bundles of garland, Christmas lights, and other decorations are still sitting in their boxes, waiting to be put up. And this year we decided to put a mini Christmas tree in the kids' room. Every night they ecstatically turn it on and ooh and aah at the beautiful sight. It makes a great nightlight!

And, obviously, I've cleaned up and redecorated my blog a little. I hope it helps you to find things a little faster. :)

And now I must get busy accomplishing the tasks of the day (and enjoying one of my last days of 29-hood).

Thankful Indeed

The chefs here in the land of Temporary Insanity would like to wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving! They are in the midst of making some very tasty cornbread stuffing, but they paused to tell me some of the things for which they are thankful:

*monster shirts

*movies

*Jesus

*Mommy and Daddy

*stuffing

*little brother when he's not hitting them

*when Momma lets them drink soda (this is a lie - I do not know what they are talking about!)

*lollipops

*toys

*the presents they will get at Christmas

*when Daddy lets them wear his shirts to bed

*football

*church

*Pastor Mutchler

I'm just guessing that all of you have a lot to be thankful for, too, huh? We wish all of you a joyous day with family and friends and of course no weight gained whatsoever. Amen. :)