Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year! We truly have so much to be Thankful for.

Usually our Thanksgiving tradition includes 2 dinners. One with my mom and dad and brother's family and all of us. And the other with the Jason's mom's whole side of the family.

This year, my parents went to Louisiana to spend the holiday with their families, so we just had 1 dinner to attend on Friday afternoon. So, this marked the very first Thanksgiving day that we stayed home- just us.

At the last minute, (the day/night before, actually) I decided to cook us a dinner. No turkey. I got a pork tenderloin out of the deep freezer. I also made homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, cream cheese corn, rolls, and mini cherry pies.

I spent most of the day cooking, as I also had to prepare deviled eggs and a homemade pumpkin cheesecake for Friday's dinner. (That pumpkin cheesecake was one of the yummiest things I've ever put in my mouth. Jason LOVED it. He said it was very dangerous and asked me not to make it too often!!) I was totally ok with that. I love to be in my kitchen cooking. If only I didn't have to clean up my messes, though.... I ran my full dishwasher 4 times and hand washed several sink-fulls of dishes on Thursday....

We made a big breakfast that morning. Pancakes, Eggs and Sausage. Jason and Rhett helped me with the cooking. Rhett is really getting into cooking lately. It is so sweet. He BEGS me to help. It's not always easy for me to allow him to "help" because I'm usually in a hurry and I dread the extra messes that I will likely have to clean up. But, I've been making a conscious effort in the past few weeks to start allowing him to help just about anytime he wants to.

Here's him cracking eggs! This was the first time I let him do this task. I had him crack each egg into a small bowl, and then after inspecting to make sure there were no shells, he dumped it into the big bowl with the rest of the eggs. He really did a great job. Only 1 egg had any shell with it. That's about as good as I do!

Jason took this picture to show the one that escaped... this poor little egg, didn't make the bowl, and therefore, didn't make it onto the breakfast table!

Braden vaccumed the living room while we made dinner. Gracie was supervising...

After breakfast, we put up our Christmas tree. We sold our tree and all of our decorations at our yard sale, not expecting to be in a house for Christmas and knowing that we wouldn't have room for much of anything at the apartment...so, we're borrowing one of my mom's trees. She only has 1 house now, so she only needs 1 tree! It is a very cute tree and I am using some of her ornaments too. I have more of our family ornaments to put on it, but they're in somewhere in storage and we have to find them first... It's much smaller than we're used to, but this is all we have room for. I'm thankful we have room to put a tree at all!!

After a couple good, long rounds of front yard football, Jason and the boys came in and played a game of chess. Jason has been looking forward to the day when they would be old enough to play against him.... since I don't particularly like to play... They did a really great job. It was definately still an instructional game; it will be a while yet before they can play on their own. But, all 3 of them had a great time.

When we sat down at the dinner table, both of the boys volunteered to say the blessing and they both did a great job. As we ate dinner, we talked about Thanksgiving and took turns going around the table saying what we're thankful for.

Rhett went first. He is thankful for our home. I could have cried. There has been such a HUGE difference in him since we were able to move out of the apartment and into a home. It was very sweet to have him say that he's thankful for this without being prompted or asked.

Braden is thankful for Freedom, Friends and Family. In that order!

Daddy said he was thankful for having work, when so many people don't. He is thankful for our family- he told each of the kids that he loves them very much. And then, (here comes the mushy-gushy again!) he looked me in the eye and told me he was thankful for his "beautiful wife".

We asked Gracie what she loved and she said something about her "ba-ba" and then something about a princess. Then she said her princess bed. (Which I will post a picture of later... we put a princess canopy over her bed and she is in heaven!)

I am thankful for our Family and our Home and our Health. And a million other things too. I have a very thankful heart.

After dinner and getting the kitchen cleaned up (again!) we moved the dining room table into the living room and played our favorite family board game Monopoly. We played for a couple hours.

After our game and our dinner went down a little bit, we warmed up the cherry pies and ate them a la mode. Yummmmmmmmmyyyyy!

Of course, Miss Gracie the Mess-maker, took a bath in her ice cream. That's what we get for not paying attention to her while she was eating...

What a wonderful Thanksgiving day!

Friday, we went to Jason's parents house and enjoyed a wonderful afternoon of food and fellowship with family. Then, I stayed up until 2am doing online Christmas shopping.

I plan to go to bed early tonight!!

Speaking of being Thankful... we may have an offer on our house. Please pray with us. A couple who is new to Berryville, have looked at it a few times in the past week. Jason showed them the house again today, and they are very interested in the house. We're going to be trying to work out the details in the next few days. God is in control. We trust Him to work out the details according to His perfect will for our life.

I am so Thankful that I have a Heavenly Father to lead me and guide me through life. I can't imagine how I would make it through a single day, much less big life events without relying on His strength. I am so weak on my own.

I hope all of you enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday too. And I guess this is our official welcome to the Christmas season!!

Coldest Camping Trip Yet

Last weekend, we decided to take the camper out for one last hoorah before putting it up for the winter. We picked Devil's Den. It's close and it's our favorite.

We even allowed Braden to invite a friend to come with us for the weekend. Poor thing has been desperate for friends since we moved...

All day Friday, I cooked and packed, getting everything ready so that maybe I could relax a bit while we were there; knowing that I mostly just had to heat up the food. With the exception of breakfast, of course. In our family, there is a law against not cooking bacon outside for breakfast...it's just wrong not to. So, with the exception of breakfast, I had all the other meals and snacks almost prepared. Only warming necessary.

When Jason got to the house with the camper, he went to plug it in so the refrigerator could start working, and something in the electrical panel below the refrigerator started making cracking noises and smoking. There was no power. The short version of the story is that Jason knew the boys would be devastated to come home from school and find out that the highly anticipated trip was off. So, he called a local RV mechanic and found out how we could make this work. After replacing a blown fuse and realizing that was not going to fix the problem, upon the advice of the professional, he cut the wire causing the problem, therefore disabling the power supply to the camper. Then he went and bought a trickle charger, which we were told we could plug in at the campsite, hook the battery to it, and live off of the battery power for the weekend.

We finally get all loaded and on the road- almost 2 hours behind schedule. It was dark when we got there. It's freezing cold. Temperature already in the 20's.

After getting all set up, we realized that the power situation was not rectified. There was no power in the outlets in the camper and the microwave didn't work. (So much for my heat and serve meals plan...) We had to run an extension cord from the outside into the camper to plug in the electric space heater and the tv.

All was well until sometime after we had gone to bed. The furnace started making very strange noises, and then quit working, so we had no heat. Only the little space heater we brought. It was VERY cold! It had gotten down to 24 degrees that night!

Then, later in the night, I realized that we had forgotten to leave faucets running so the water hose wouldn't freeze. I woke up Jason to check it and sure enough, frozen water hose.... lovely. Now I couldn't even go to the potty...

Here is what the hose connection on the outside of the camper looked like the next morning...

Luckily, my husband is an official wilderness man and is very resourceful, he had an extra hose that we could use.

Despite this and the fact that we forgot to check the status of our propane bottles for our outdoor cooker and therefore ran out before the weekend was up, we ended up having a GREAT time.

Jason fixed the furnace problem. He had both propane tanks filled up before we left town, but apparently the guy messed up on one of them, because it was empty! That's why the furnace wasn't working. Jas switched to the other tank and it worked like a charm the rest of the weekend. We were toasty warm!

On Saturday we hiked alot, made a campfire and made smores. On Sunday, we biked a bit and even had another fire in the morning.

We all came home in desperate need for baths, as it was too cold and none of us wanted to shower while we were gone... and it was SO nice to get home. Except for the 9 loads of laundry I had to do when we got back... But, as I always say, I mostly work myself to death to do fun stuff like this to make fond memories for my kids. If it were just me, I'd probably just lay around the house and not create so much work for myself!

Here's some pics of the weekend!

I Love My Husband!

I just found these pictures of Jason and I from our wedding and honeymoon on my computer. These were taken before the days of digital cameras, but I had scanned these to my computer a while back for something else and I forgot about them!

Here we are on our wedding day. May 29, 1999. Almost 10 years ago! It seems like just yesterday. We were just babies; I was 18 and Jason was 20. We have been together since I was 15 and he was 17.

For those of you who don't remember his old beater truck from back in high school...well...let's just say she was sure a beauty. It didn't bother him to drive that truck and it sure didn't bother me to ride anywhere and everywhere with him in it. Right next to him. He went to work full time the very next day after his last day of his senior year. It was the week before he even graduated. Of course, one of the first things he wanted to do was buy himself a new truck. But you know what he did before he bought a new truck? He bought my engagement ring.

Upon his request, I showed him what I liked at the jewelry store. Of course, he went back later and picked out a ring with a diamond that was more than twice the size of what I had chosen. Here is a picture of it today. Shown with my wedding band too, of course.

This was a young man, barely 18, who had his priorities straight.

Since that day, he has always had his priorities in line. I am so thankful for that. Jason doesn't have a need to hang out with the guys. Sure, every once in a blue moon, but hardly ever. He can't wait to get home and be with me and the kids. He would rather be doing anything with me than be with anyone else.

The first thing he does when he walks in the door (after he hugs and kisses whatever children may be in his path) is come find me, wherever I am in the house, and give me a kiss and a hug.

He will do anything and everything I ask him to do around the house. Never grumbles or complains about anything. Just makes sure that I'm always ok. He tells me he loves me at least 50 times a day (no, I'm not exaggerating)!

Here we are on our honeymoon trip to Cancun. We went on a little cruise on this boat. We had a little too much fun on this little excursion!

I'm so thankful to say that we are a million times more in love today than we were on this day back in June of 1999. We've still never had a fight. Sure, we disagree plenty, but we just state our opinion to each other and let it go. (The occasional disagreements didn't happen either until we became self employed and we work together... :-)

God sure knew what he was doing when he put us together. As always, and with everything else, He knows what's best for us.

I'm sure my sweet husband will have a red face when he reads this because he is so modest and has never been one to boast about anything. I did this anyway, because I want him to know how much he means to me- other than me telling him- which I do almost everyday.

I will spare you of anymore mushy gushy for today!

October

Forgive me for neglecting the blog... we have had so much going on, I can't even begin to tell you.

But, life is good and God is good!!! That's what I will say!

Here's pictures of Daddy's "surprise" 30th birthday party.

There was no time for the usual homemade birthday cake. So, a few hours before, we went to Target and I let the boys pick out a box of Little Debbies and some candles.

Braden was keeping watch out the window and we were ready to yell "Happy Birthday" and blow our noise makers when Daddy walked in the door.

Although Daddy had a pretty good idea of where the boys might want to take him for his surprise, he totally went along with all of it. Here's Braden putting Daddy's seat belt on him- since he was blindfolded, he couldn't see, of course!

Here we are at the bowling alley. Which is the coolest place around in our book. Daddy was very tired this night and not feeling too well, but knew the "surprise" was important to the boys, so he had a great time. We all had a great time! We had good food and lots of good family fun!

Daddy's girl

Braden

Rhett

Here we are at Russ and Aggie's annual Pumpkin Carving Party. After we got our bellies full on all of Nanny's yummy food, we headed outside to the driveway for the pumpkin carving!

Here's PaPa showing us how a real man carves a pumpkin!!

By looking at this picture, you'd never know that last year, Rhett wouldn't touch the pumpkin guts. This year, he was all about it. He cleaned out his entire pumpkin by himself!

Gracie didn't want to touch it at first, but she warmed up to the idea of "helping" PaPa. She would take the handfuls of "guts" and walk it across the driveway to Poppy's pumpkin and dump it in his. So cute!

Here's Gracie and my nephew Tre sharing some love while we were getting ready for Halloween Trick or Treat.

Gracie- Little Red Riding Hood. Or as she called herself, "Princess".

This girl was all about the dressing up!!!

Rhett was the White Ranger. Of course, he's been a Power Ranger for the last 3 years!!!

Braden was Darth Vader. Minus the floor length black cape, which Mamma forgot at home and we were in Berryville. Sorry Braden!!

Here's Daddy, Nanny, Poppy and the Kids trick or treating in our neighborhood. As usual, Mamma and Daddy were bringing up the back of the line and sneaking in a little PDA. Hee-Hee! :-)

We're In

We're in the house. We're unpacking boxes again. It REALLY stinks, but we will be unpacked soon. We feel like we're living in a mansion after the apartment experience.
Rhett has taken 3 jacuzzi baths in the master bathroom already.
Gracie slept all night in her own bedroom last night! That was the first time she's ever slept in a room all by herself. Me and Jason couldn't get over having the room to ourselves for the first time in MANY MANY MANY years!
Well, got lots of work to do and lots of unpacking still to do, so I'm outta here.