It's been an adventure to see the leaves change color in our neighborhood. Our first Fall in our first house. Pretty sweet. This is the view from the front window. Our brightest tree was our tiniest one!
I've enjoyed watching the neighbor's landscape transition as I've stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes.
When the leaves were at peak color, we made leaf place mats.
Noelle was unswayed by Isaiah and my attempts to get her to add some yellow or orange to hers. She picked every leaf from the bright red leaf because "the red leaves are the prettiest!"
We were blessed to have Grandma and Granddad here with us for a week of Luke being at SBL and then a Thanksgiving celebration. It is always sweet to have them with us, and we had a great time in spite of a few cold, wet, Scotland-esque days. We made the most of our indoor confinement - movies, games, painting the living room, working on the garage, a morning at the science museum in Shreveport, and lots of Thanksgiving goodies. By the time Luke got home, the rain had stopped and the sun was starting to reappear. The big kids each got their own little set of golf clubs and got to try them out at LeTourneau. They were SO excited and proud! Isaiah made a little club for Lucy out of crafty things so she could have her own club, too. The big kids also got new tennis shoes. Noelle's blink, which make her very happy.
I didn't take many pics during the week - in part because I usually had paint on my hands! But, I did manage to get the camera out on Thanksgiving day.
Luke did a devotional for us. Here we are receiving gifts (coins), and practicing holding our gifts with open, generous hearts.
Parade!
Noelle patiently waiting for the meal and playing w/ the little pilgrim decorations. I have done a poor job this year in talking about the original Thanksgiving story. When we asked Noelle if she knew who the pilgrims were, her answer cracked us up, but embarrassed her to tears. It was too cute, though, not to record - "Yes! The pilgrims are the ones who hide treasures at the end of rainbows!"
We all had a part to play in pulling our little feast together. Mom and her turkey, which cooked very quickly in the new convection oven!
Along with Grandma, Lucy was the green bean snapper, and she stuck with it for a long time!
Roxanne made the dressing, Luke made the gravy.
Another year of Thankful leaves. It continues to be one of my favorite traditions.
This year, Isaiah was anxious to do a lot of the writing and spelling all on his own. Lucy's go-to answers this year were "Thankful spiders" and "Thankful people". I think she also said she was thankful for dolphins at one point.
Noelle was thankful for things like healthy food, pretty fall leaves, and all kinds of flowers.
Isaiah thanked God for "transforming our house". Yep! We have definitely been in home-making mode for the last few months and it is a gift to have the resources (and the house!) to make a home.
We moved right on to Christmas when the meal was over! We had Christmas trees in our wedding 11 years ago, but we haven't been able to put up our "wedding tree" since then. It was so fun to finally bring it out! We also got to go through Luke's Christmas ornaments and treasures from his childhood. Isaiah really likes the elf ladder.
Lucy got the hang of the ornament thing. Sort of. She's only broken 1 so far...
My mantle!! Our biggest project during the week was painting this room and moving boxes, the fuse ball table, etc, out of the room. The goal was to make the living room "livable". I really love the way the fireplace turned out. The brick had been painted a pretty ugly tan color (which I think was lead paint). And the walls were kind of blue/gray. We ended up kind of swapping the colors, but choosing more appealing hues of both. I love the way the fireplace turned out and I LOVED hanging our new stockings up for the first time. Such a sweet little moment for this momma/wife/homemaker.
We worked up a good dessert appetite after an afternoon of decorating and football watching. Noelle was our pumpkin pie maker -
Isaiah was the pecan pie guy -
And, finally, at the end of the day, we skyped with Cass, Alex, Noah & Elliot.
The next day, Lucy was very happy to sit in the sunshine and peruse our Christmas books under the tree. Love this sweet baby in her mis-matched socks and morning hair, exploring Christmas.
1 comment:
Happy Thanksgiving! Love keeping up with you...
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