Thankful for Thanksgiving

I've been absent from my blog for too long. Sorry all. A cold, Christmas shopping, Thanksgiving preparations, and my computer game addiction have kept me from recording my pursuits here.

I hope all you readers had a great Thanksgiving and I hope you each have many things to be thankful for. I am so thankful that we were able to travel back home and visit our family. We had such a great time with everyone--and of course there was the food :) I'm trying to get out of the habit of eating every hour like I did over the weekend.

I loved watching my girls enjoying and being enjoyed by their grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. We had a great dinner at my dad's house, and I have kinda picked up my mom's role in our family get-togethers. I brought some turkey, stuffing, cranberry salad like mom used to make, and a pumpkin pie. My sister-in-law and I got it all warmed up and we got the kids' food fixed and set them up in the living room and we big folks ate in the kitchen. It brought back memories of how we kids all had to eat in the living room and how we used to wish we could eat at the table ;) Three of my neices were there, so five little girls giggled and squealed and played until they were wore out. We laughed so hard just watching them. I cleaned up the dishes and my brother pointed out how I sounded like our mom when I reprimanded the kids with, "You all are getting too rough!" I had to laugh at that--I could just hear her saying that too.

Even though we missed her, our second Thanksgiving without her was still full of good memories. I am thankful to have had her for 27 years of my life. I'm thankful that she was one of the few people who was brave enough to try a bite of every new recipe I tried, even if she didn't care for it. I'm thankful for teaching me unselfishness, sacrifice, and love for family. I hope I can keep learning and improving on those qualities as time goes on.