'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving....

I didn't make it too far on my photojournal of thankfulness. Only nine days of pictures, but definitely a whole month full of being thankful.

So, so thankful for my family.
Thankful for my beautiful children and wonderful husband.
Thankful for our home, warm beds, warm clothes, warm showers.
Thankful for plentiful food and clean water.
Thankful for our jobs, and that we've not had to go without during these hard economic times that have affected so many.

So very thankful. For so much.

In that spirit of thankfulness, our family participated this year in a tradition we learned from our friends the Mosses.....we had a Thankful Dinner. Jen calls it a Starvation Dinner, but I wasn't that brave. :)

We had black beans and rice for dinner, and nothing else. As soon as I said, "And just water to drink," Jacob suddenly started asking for all kinds of other things to drink. "Can I have milk? Juice? Can I put flavoring (i.e. propel powder) in my water?" What's so funny is that we drink water with dinner every night - but suddenly when it was part of the Thankful Dinner, Jacob couldn't stand it. :)

After dinner we watched Kit Kittredge - lighthearted entertainment, but also with a strong message about being thankful - and then a couple of YouTube videos to help us remember that we have SO MUCH to be thankful for. And....SO MUCH responsibility to help others.

We watched this video that I saw on Jen's blog....




And then this video that I saw on someone else's blog a few months ago....




Man.

At the end of the videos I asked the kids, "What do you think about that?"

Kloe's response: "I want to adopt. A lot." I don't know if that means she very much wants to adopt, or she wants to adopt a lot of kids. :)

Jacob's response: "I'm hungry. Will you get me something to eat?"

sigh.

I have to remind myself it's the Holy Spirit's job, not mine, to create compassion in him. My job is just to educate, and train, and remind.....and pray.

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In other news, early this morning -- or at least I thought it was early until I actually got up and saw what time it was :) -- I was awakened by the sound of incessant hammering.  When I couldn't take it any more, I got out of bed and stumbled into the living room where Kloe was watching cartoons.  I asked her, "Where's Jacob?"

"Outside."

Great.  Yep.  That was him making all that ruckus.  Hammering rocks in his size 5 overalls. :D  (Ok, can I just pause right here and ask why Blogger doesn't have emoticons that you can insert into your posts???)

Later I found him hammering nails into the fence, looking a little like Pa Ingalls in the same overalls.  (Why do we still have them, you ask?  Dress up, my friends, is a very important part of our lives around here.  He dressed up as no less than 4 different people today.)

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While Pa Jacob mended the fence, Kloe and I started on lunch for tomorrow. This guy went for a long swim in my sink for the biggest part of the day.

Kloe helped make the green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. She said, "It's like cooking school! Oh, I love Thanksgiving cooking school!" :)  Haha - she might not be so excited if she knew her teacher was the cooking school dropout!

Tomorrow morning we'll finish up the candied sweet potatoes (ONLY because my mom's coming over!), pumpkin pie, dump cake (mmmmm - love), stuffing, and of course the bird. It's my first time making the whole shebang myself (can you believe it? at 40?)....and you know cooking isn't exactly my forte, so wish me luck!

Just like today - what with the crack of dawn rock busting going on - I'm sure I'll be needing a bunch of this to get me through the morning.

Happy Thanksgiving all my bloggy friends - I hope you have a wonderful, blessed, THANKFUL day!