Happy Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving.  What a wonderful day set aside to remember all the many, many blessings we have.  This picture shows two of my most favorite blessings:

Thursday morning, we watched the Macy's parade together; what a fun tradition!  We paused it for a few minutes to make a Thanksgiving dessert: Rice Krispie Turkeys.  They didn't look quite as nice as the recipe picture, but they were gobbled up that afternoon.

After making a couple of other dishes and watching the parade, we all got ready and headed over to Sid and Elaine's house.  A lot of my dad's family gets together there each year, and we have a blast together.  Luckily, it was a beautiful day so the kids were able to play outside; a lot of the kids were running around barefoot!  Both girls loved playing on their swings and running around on their tennis court playing soccer, basketball, riding bikes and doing just about anything but playing tennis.  Their favorite part though was definitely going down the kid zip line that Sid and Elaine have; they loved it!  Mia was the first one to try it out, and then all the kids played for a long time on it; talk about fun for them!  Of course, we also enjoyed an amazingly delicious meal, and we had fun with a lot of family.  Again, what a wonderful day!

The girls didn't take naps during the day because they were having too much fun, so about 15 minutes after getting home, this is how we found Mia in the living room.

 A few other miscellaneous Thanksgiving things...

Lily made this cute placemat at school.  Her class had a Thanksgiving feast the Tuesday before, and they used these.  Lily loved telling me how she painted her hand to make the turkey.  They also made a little turkey napkin ring which was pretty cute.  Mrs. Worrell made a tree, and each child attached a leaf that said what he or she is thankful for.  Lily put "my food."

Liz helped the girls make these adorable turkey crafts at home one day.

Liz helped Mia make this sweet little tree.  Mia was so proud of herself!

Such a sweet little cheerleader!  I am so thankful for this little one!

On Friday evening, Ryan and I put up our Christmas tree.  We love putting this up each year, so we can relive lots of fun memories as we pull out the ornaments we have acquired from our various trips.  What a fun evening.

I love to pull out this nativity set that Meme brought back from the Holy Land.  She brought one back for each of her five grandkids.  This hand-carved wood has a very nice, distinct smell to it; that smell makes me think of Christmas whenever I walk past it. It's beautiful, and I love it.

We both love this Hummel nativity set that Ryan's Grandmama gave him before she passed away a few years ago.  It's as lovely as Grandmama.

On Saturday morning, we went to The Optimist Club's pancake breakfast.  Delicious!  Afterwards, we stopped by the Dollar Store to let the girls pick up a new ornament, and then we came home to decorate their tree.  They had a blast!  They sorted all through their box of ornaments and picked out their favorites to hang.  Mia was partial to the little jingle bells while Lily found every one of the princess ornaments.  It was a fun time.  Here are several pictures of them getting the tree ready.

I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving weekend as much as we did.  Now it's time to think about the upcoming Christmas season!