Thanksgiving Vol 2

Thanksgiving Day and the kids were excited and up early. I found them tucked away watching a video. They can be so sweet together.

Number 15? 16?-ish Road Race for me. The faces change a bit every year but its always a fun time.

As an added bonus, I stumbled into my sister at the starting line.

SO many costumes but this person who ran the entire 4.78 miles wearing a live, decorated Christmas tree was a favorite.

Twins! :)

Shaun and Aiden broke out the WW II board game Axis & Allies. Over the holiday weekend they played for hours and hours and hours. Watching them makes me laugh, because they essentially share the same brain. A few tried to understand the game but its a commitment just to learn how to play.

My oldest nephew very sweetly pointed out that he has an 18-year streak of being at our house on Thanksgiving. It means the world to me that he has, and also that it means something to him. All hearts go to Auntie's for Thanksgiving. :)

Always lots of help.

Kids table.

"Adult" table. :)

Crazy thankful for this guy and the messy fairytale we're living.

Birthday celebrations for these three November babies.

The next day we laid low and put up Christmas decorations but the tree didn't get decorated until Saturday when we could do it all together.

Then we headed to Sarah's to take advantage of his dad visiting from Chicago.

Blessed with cousins and grandparents and great-grandparents. I try to express to my kids how relatively big their family is and how blessed they are, but its just normal to them.

Its not all perfect, but we have much to be thankful for!

Since everything God created is good, we should not reject 

any of it but receive it with thanks.

I Timothy 4:4

Project 365, Week 48

This week had some hard in it, as we said goodbye to our house of 20 years. It was a good and necessary thing to sell it, but still emotional, though all of those feelings are wrapped up in gratefulness. We have so much to be thankful for! And we had Thanksgiving this week to officially stop and remember our blessings.

November 20

Such a sad/happy, bitter/sweet time as we did a final pack-up and clean-up of our old house on North Street before the closing the next day. So much hard work and amazing memories tied up with that place. One final time we stood in the kitchen together, the kitchen that we gutted and then built back, the kitchen that has the custom-built cherry cabinets my dad made, all those years ago.

Saying goodbye to the girls' pink and yellow room with the window seats around the turret.

I wanted to recreate every picture, but we settled on this one from 8 years ago, when they were all in diapers (at least at night).

November 21
The reason we still had stuff at the other house was because we don't have a good place to put it where we are. So we moved things around and got creative.

November 22
Preparing for Thanksgiving! The kids were a huge help and it was fun to work alongside them.

November 23
Tradition! Thanksgiving morning run! This year I ran with two girls who were doing their first ever race...my daughter J and Amanda's friend/classmate/teammate. What an honor to inspire the next generation and hopefully to show girls what it means to be strong and healthy.

Three cousins with birthdays on November 25, 27, 29. 

November 24
A nice chill day playing games and decorating.

November 25
We like to decorate the tree with Nana, especially since 3/4 of the ornaments were gifts from her. :)

With all the family still in town, we gathered at Sarah's house. I am "that" family member who is pesky about pictures. Someday they'll thank me. ;) Cousins are such a gift!!

November 26
It had been an emotionally taxing day, so K and I (and Gavin and Ginger) went for a walk. The cold air and the pink sky were just perfect.