Scenes from a Thanksgiving

The baby woke at 5:00 am. was nursed back to sleep in the glider in his room, then awoke again at 6:30. Tired Mom hears him crying on the monitor and asks Dad to bring him into their bed. Baby (not very babyish anymore, but still nursing at 14 months old), nurses and snoozes with Mom for a few more minutes then is talking, poking, and crawling all over. Then Big Brother calls out that he's awake, too. He's three and half, and big for his age, but still loves sleeping in his crib, so he needs help to get out. Lucky Mom gets the best Thanksgiving gift ever when Dad takes both kids and she sleeps for another few hours.

The day is cold but clear and the sun will burn off the frost soon. Dad, working long hours at a new job with a 2 hour daily commute, takes the rare opportunity of being home during daylight hours to mow the lawn. He doesn't get very far when the whole family troops outside to "help". Boots and parkas over zippered, footed jammies. Big Brother likes to smash the grass and leaves down in the big garbage can. When no one is looking, he throws rocks in, too. Baby doesn't understand why he can't be right by Dad.

This moment, and all the other moments that are smashed together in our busy days, is what I am thankful for.

                                                                               ***

I wrote that on Thanksgiving morning. Sometimes I am just overtaken by how wonderfully blessed I am to have these three men (one big, two little) in my life.

It was an "off" year for John's family, but my family decided to have our celebration on a different day, so we ended up at Grandma and Grandpa T's house anyway. It was a small group, just Anne, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Jim and us. It was really nice! And the food was delicious. I made a cranberry jello mold that turned out quite well, actually.

My family decided to try something different this year. We had a "grown-up", fancy dinner on Friday night and put the little kids to bed. We currently have four kids age 3 and under, so our family gatherings are usually pretty crazy. It was nice to have only the adults (and Sam and Lily) to help with cooking and cleaning up and to just enjoy our meal and each other. My mom and dad hosted and my mom had the house and table decorated so beautifully.