Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving this year was a very low-key celebration, but we had a good time and ate good food. We spent the day at my in-laws. They fried a turkey and made most of the side dishes, I brought a broccoli casserole and some other veggies as well as rolls and a pie. Keith's Grandpa has been in poor health for a long while now, but he came up for 30 minutes so he could see Garrett. (They live next door to Keith's parents so it wasn't far for them to go.) They said he's special to them because he's currently their only grandchild sharing their last name. And a boy at that. Garrett is basically it as far as the name lineage goes. Keith's dad has one brother who only had one daughter and Keith only has a sister, so Garrett will carry on this branch of the family name. Of course if I'm having another boy, then they will share in that responsibility.

Garrett is a very friendly kid for the most part, so he enjoyed having a captive audience in the way of Keith's grandparents. They hung on his every word and ooh'ed and aahh'ed at the appropriate moments as Garrett was showing off all his toys. At one point Keith's grandma looked at me and asked where he got the chatty gene because Keith was not a talkative child. (Is anyone surprised by that?) Apparently I haven't shown my true colors to most of Keith's family because they all acted surprised when I told them I was a pretty chatty kid. (Hence one of my nicknames being Gabby Abby.) My mom got a good kick out of that when I told her about it later.

(Garrett and one set of his great-grandparents)

After eating the yummy food (of which Garrett ate exactly one bite) we all watched Garrett work off that piece of turkey. Keith's parents have a pull-up bar in the doorway of one of their bedrooms. His mom has back problems and this helps her to be able to stretch out her back as well as do a little working out. Garrett was completely enthralled with it and would have spent the entire day doing pull ups if he had a willing participant to help him. This product has an infomercial that we've seen many times. So often, in fact, that Garrett has it basically memorized. One of the lines in the infomercial is "Wanna get ripped" which Garrett loves repeating. So he said this multiple times while "working out". I never got him saying it in its entirety on video, but here's an idea of what he was doing.

Later in the afternoon, Keith and I went to his sister's house to see her new baby. Michael Brayden was born a couple of weeks ago and Melanie didn't feel up to getting out of the house with her 3 kids, so they stayed home that day. The baby looks a lot like her other 2 kids.

After that visit we went back to Keith's parents to pick up Garrett and head on home. We live about an hour from them, so we wanted to get home before it got too late. On the way home, Garrett sang to us in order to keep himself awake. The whole time at Keith's parents I kept trying to get Garrett to sing his days of the week song, but he refused, instead he decided to sing it over and over in the car on the way home. I apologize for most of this being dark. I thought the camera would pick up a little light from outside, but it obviously didn't. Keith doesn't like having the interior lights on while he was driving so that's why I turned them off and on a few times.

Once we got home, we ate leftovers from lunch and then watched "The Incredibles" which was on TV.

We had a great day. The weather was perfect and the food was delicious. I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Now it's time to start checking people off my Christmas list. I have bought exactly nothing for Keith, but I'm almost done with everyone else. I attempted to do a little "Black Friday" shopping yesterday morning, but our local Walmart was a joke. Nothing was labeled with their sale prices and more than half of the items that I was interested in buying weren't even there and I didn't see a place where they had been there earlier. It makes me wonder if they were even available at our Walmart. Oh the joys of attempting to find a great deal. It usually backfires on you.

I have to add that Target totally came through and gave me a $25 e-giftcard for their mistake with the mispricing of the carseat that I tried to buy from them a few weeks ago. So I've cancelled my Target boycott. Good thing, since I love that store.

Thanksgivings Past

As we get closer to Thanksgiving, I've been thinking of the ones that I've celebrated in the past. A drawback to having a dad in the ministry means that you ultimately live in a variety of places, which also means that you probably don't live close to family. So when you don't live close to family, you don't celebrate holidays with extended family.

Thank goodness my immediate family is pretty big. 5 kids, 2 parents. A 7 person Thanksgiving feast is still a pretty good party. We always enjoyed ourselves whether it was just the 7 of us or if we had additional family members visiting. For many years my uncle Jamie, my mom's youngest brother, would come to our house for the holidays and take part in our family traditions. I can also remember atleast a couple of Thanksgivings where 2 of my cousins came to spend the holiday with us because they were attending Wheaton College in the Chicago area and we were the closest relatives to them. Those were fun times as well. But the majority of our holidays were spent with just our family.

I think my fondest memory of Thanksgiving is simply that the menu rarely changed. Baked turkey, stuffing (somestimes homemade, sometimes StoveTop and to be honest I love both equally), broccoli casserole (the best EVER), canned cranberries (they had to be canned because they had to have the can shape to them, just another tradition), a variety of veggies, homemade rolls, and the creamiest mashed potatoes you will ever eat. ("These mashed potatoes are so creamy." Name that movie!)

One of my favorite Thanksgivings was a few years ago when Keith and I hosted both of our families in our house. It was our first time to fry a turkey and I also baked one (which was also a first). Everything turned out really good except I was heating up some black eyed peas, actually a ton of black eyed peas, and they weren't thoroughly heated until about halfway through our meal. But other than that, it all turned out well.

While my worst memory is probably our first Thanksgiving in Texas. My mom decided that was a year to make homemade stuffing and she asked me to give her a hand in the kitchen. Somehow the uncooked stuffing was in its pan, sitting on top of the stove waiting to go in the oven and I turned on the wrong burner for something I was heating up. I ruined the stuffing because the burner I turned on was under the stuffing pan. My mom was NOT happy. I had to make a run to the grocery store for some StoveTop.

Until my parents moved to Indiana, Thanksgiving was always the holiday that Keith and I spent with my family. (The one in '04 being the exception.) We would drive down on Wednesday night or early Thursday and stay until Saturday or Sunday. It always worked out well because it was about a 5 hour drive so we were able to spend several days in a row since we were both off work. Garrett celebrated his first Thanksgiving at Nana and Pawpaw's house. While we ate, he tried out the Exersaucer that Grace loaned to us.

(Garrett's first Thanksgiving.)

(Garrett's second Thanksgiving. So he's not really eating here, but I promise this was taken on Thanksgiving day. That's Keith's dad's dog, Scooter.)

How sad is it that I don't have a picture of Garrett on any other subsequent Thanksgivings. I guess it's true what they say that the older they get the more the newness wears off. :) Hopefully that won't apply to baby #2.

This year will be the third Thanksgiving that I haven't spent with my family. Of course it's sad, but it's just life when you live 14 hours away. I know they will have an excellent day (minus my dad's broken ribs of course) my grandparents will be there along with my mom's brother, Jerry, and his family. Poor Brad and I will be the only missing members of the family. Brad, we should have gotten together and done something extremely fun this year so they would all be jealous.

A few of the things that I'm thankful for:

1. Keith
2. Garrett
3. Baby #2 (I really should come up with a nickname to use. Got any suggestions?)
4. My parents and siblings, nieces and nephews.
5. Keith's family
6. All 4 of my grandparents who have blessed me over the past almost 30 years and are still around to meet my children and bless them as well.
7. The rest of my extended family.
8. The fact that God has provided for us in abundance. I am so amazed at the things He does for us. We are so blessed.
9. My family's health. I know there are so many families that struggle with a chronically ill child or family member and we have been overall very blessed in this area. My dad's broken ribs will heal and he will go back to being a healthy, busy man.
10. My new job that I didn't really go looking for but it found me. It's nice to be able to make some additional money as well as work with some pretty cool people. (And get free homemade pies from church members for Thanksgiving!!)
11. Keith's job which has allowed me to be a stay at home mom for all these years. I know there is many a night when he doesn't get home until 10pm or later and in those moments he's hating his job with every fiber in his being, but he has learned a lot while working there, established a lot of contacts, made many friends, and is paid enough so that we don't have to worry too much about our finances. I think he would agree with me, with maybe the exception of when he's in Minnesota for a week.
12. Our house, which I may grumble about because it's on the small side, but it looks nice and is fairly easy to clean (when I'm in the mood) as well as having an affordable mortgage. That's probably the biggest asset.
13. Our vehicles that get us from point A to point B, one of which is completely paid for and the other is very close. One is Daddy's truck and the other is Momma's truck, according to Garrett. He much prefers to ride in Daddy's truck. (I don't really drive a truck either, it's an SUV.)

I hope you all will take the time to count your blessings over the next couple of days.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Random Friday

I think my Friday posts will just be random thoughts and ideas. By the end of the week, my brain is pretty fried. I'm sure once I've got this new job under my belt, I won't feel quite so frazzled, but in the mean time, here's some randomness.

• I still haven't decorated our tree (I haven't even "fluffed" it out) and it's been standing in my living room for a week. Somehow Garrett has managed to slide it a couple of feet to the left from where I originally had it standing.
• Part of the reason for the lack of decoration is because a mouse has gotten into our garage, so I'm hesistent to go in and out of the garage bringing in ornaments. I don't want to take any chances of that mouse getting inside the house. In fact, I've gone so far as to exit and enter our house via the back door, and then walk around to the garage and use our keypad to open the garage door. I hate mice with a passion! And I actually saw this one come in the garage, so that makes me freak out even more. Keith put out glueboards to catch it, but we apparently have a mutant on our hands because yesterday morning he found a glueboard covered in fur and a tail (!), but no mouse. Gross! That sucker better be gone soon if he knows what's good for him.
• I'm still feeling pretty good with my pregnancy. Not much morning sickness to speak of and some exhaustion, but that's about it. I apologize to anyone reading this who has experienced terrible morning sickness (Hi Grace!), but somehow I've lucked out in this department for both of my pregnancies. Since I only have a couple of weeks left of the first trimester, I'm in hopes that I can only feel better from here on out. Until I'm hugely pregnant, then I'll feel much, much worse. I'm just glad this baby is due in June and not August like Garrett. That summer was miserable.
• Because of how the first 9 weeks of this pregnancy have gone so far, I'm feeling more sure of my instincts that this baby is another boy. So far everything has been very similar to my first pregnancy.
• Keith and I looked through the baby name book last night and he vetoed a few more names. Finley, Linley, Graham. But he said he liked Leopold. I called his bluff and said I would be ok with Leo (I have an uncle named Leo, so it's not too big of a stretch) and he said no to Leo, so I pointed out that Leo would be the obvious nickname for Leopold, so he retracted that name. I know all these names probably sound a little "out there" and I have no plans of choosing an odd name, but I think some of them would grow on you. He did say he liked the name Natalie, but not as much as the other girl name that we've both liked for a while. I'm not going to share our current front runners for now, maybe once we find out what we're having. I did actually find a boy name that he liked equal to our favorite, so that name could change. Is it bad that I'm forgetting what that name was now? We may have found a new boy name and now I've forgotten it! I'm sure he'll remember, or I'll find it again...maybe.
• I still have a long ways to go before our guest room is ready for Garrett to move in. I really want him moved into it a couple of months before this baby is born. I don't want him to think that the new baby kicked him out of his old room. But I think he's going to love the new room so much, he shouldn't care. I'm doing a Disney movie theme, with posters from the movies "Cars", "Monsters Inc", "Toy Story", etc. I plan on framing the posters so they'll look a little nicer hanging on the walls. And this bedroom is bigger than his current room, so I think he'll enjoy spending more time in there playing. Some of his Christmas presents are specifically geared for his new room too. I've already picked out the paint color and have an idea for the bedding and curtain, it's just a matter of buying those things.
• Thanksgiving is next week! I'm really excited about the turkey and I cannot wait for the yummy rolls and potato casserole. The plus to being pregnant during the holidays is the fact that you can feel free to eat more than normal because you're "eating for 2". However, the negative to being pregnant (atleast for me) is that I get full much faster than normal. So I'll probably have to eat my food in multiple sittings. The crazy part is thinking ahead to next Thanksgiving when I'll have a 4 year old and a 5 month old. Bizarre!
• I'm sure I'll post again between now and next Thursday, but just in case I forget, I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! We will be spending the day at Keith's parents' house and sharing the meal with them. I'm responsible for the vegetables and a dessert, but I think I'm also going to bring some rolls. His family doesn't really eat much bread (the shock and horror, I know!) so I'm not really sure if anybody will be taking care of the rolls. In my family, it's better to have too many rolls, than not enough. Of course that's probably why most of us have a weight problem.

Little of This, Little of That

A few random things to share.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that we bought a treadmill. Well, it arrived this week, so the website we ordered from was apparently legit. Good to know. The treadmill is nice and much bigger than I thought it would be. Keith and I put it together Wednesday night and set it up in our guest room. I learned that evening that my husband had never been on a treadmill before. After putting it together, I hopped on to give it a test run (not literally). I cranked it up to about 2 and a half miles per hour, and that was plenty fast for me, someone who is pretty out of shape currently. Keith tried to bump it up more and gets me to 3 mph where I finally told him to knock it off. So after 5 minutes of walking I got off. Keith then took his turn. He realized that 3 mph for someone who hasn't been exercising regularly is pretty brisk. He actually put himself up to 4 before discovering he couldn't walk without holding onto the side bars and he broke out into a sweat. I laughed. Atleast now he knows what it's like to walk on a treadmill, and he discovered he needs to do it regularly (so do I).

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and we all have plenty to be thankful for. I discovered this even more so yesterday. After stuffing ourselves, Keith headed out to his family's gun range along with his dad, a friend, and his friend's son. Briefly, I just want to inform everyone who does not know Keith, he is super hyper about gun safety and always has been. He double and triple checks to be sure guns aren't loaded before doing anything with them. We keep all of our guns locked up in a gun safe. Keith also refuses to do target practice with just anybody because he knows that there are a lot of people who aren't safe to be around with guns. So, he figured that the group he was going out with yesterday were safe to shoot with. Well, he figured wrong. His friend got out a gun and laid it on the tailgate of his truck. I never found out what exactly he was doing to the gun, but he hadn't loaded it yet. However, he accidentally bumped the trigger and the gun went off. Apparently there had been a bullet in the chamber that he was unaware of. The bullet went through the side of his truck and passed in front of Keith, missing him by about a foot. Keith said he could actually feel the bullet going by and he thought he had been shot. His dad came running over as soon as he heard the gun go off and Keith was hollaring at him to see where he was hit. Keith was afraid to look himself over because he didn't think he could handle seeing blood pouring out. As soon as his dad had checked him out and told him he was fine, Keith almost threw up and passed out at the same time. He was so shaken up over it that he was still white as a sheet when I saw him about an hour later. He had to just sit there for awhile before he felt like he could head back to his parents' house (which was maybe 5 minutes away). We've been very thankful since then and have thanked God many times. I can't even imagine where I would be if things had been different. It's a good reminder of how brief our life is here and that we have no control over when our time is up here on Earth.

And to end on a light note, I thought I would share with you a funny moment with Garrett. Just a little background, Garrett is still picking up words and saying more and more all of the time. He has said many 3 word sentences, but that's about it. Today I got out all of the Christmas decorations and put up the tree. Then I had Garrett help me decorate, not much got done, but it was fun watching him hang 10 things on one branch. While he was decorating, I was attempting to get a cute picture of him that I would be able to use for our Christmas cards this year. It wasn't really working out, so I asked Garrett to come and stand in front of the tree for a second and say cheese. Anytime I get out my cell phone and act like I'm going to take a picture with it, he comes running and screams cheese, he loves it! But for some reason the process isn't quite as fun with the digital camera. So his response to my request for his cooperation with a picture was this "I don't wanna say cheese". I was floored, simply because he said this with crystal clarity as well as the fact that he's never said such a long sentence before. So my response was just to laugh and attempt to get his cooperation without him realizing it later on. I did get a couple of good shots, thankfully. But now that he's discovered he can say this, everything is "I don't wanna...". I'm quite sure this is going to get old real quick, but I was really proud of his language abilities at that particular moment.