A Day of Thanks

Yesterday was truly a day of Thanksgiving. We had a lovely day, with wonderful weather, wonderful food, and wonderful company. It's been twelve years since I've been married, and I have to admit something. Until recently, there has always been a part of me that feels like I'm not quite "at home" on the holidays unless I'm with my parents and siblings. But in the last few years (maybe because of the sheer number of children I have), I finally feel settled into my own family. I still miss my other family, but I no longer feel incomplete when we're not together. I do still miss my mom and sisters on Friday morning though. I tried last year to do the Black Friday thing by myself, got up early, stood in the lines, but it's just not the same without someone to share it with. So this year, I laid in my nice warm bed until nine in the morning and called my mom on her cell phone to partake of some of the Black Friday Frenzy. Denfinately better.

I'm attempting to start a new holiday tradition at our home. I call it the Thankful Tree Placemats



I made a placemat for everyone in my family, plus Grandma & Grandpa. I patterend the tree after the family tree I made last year as a wallhanging. I put everyone's names on them, and bought some fabric markers. On the back side of their placemat, I had everyone write their names and something they were thankful for that year. I'm planning on pulling them out every year and adding to them...I think it will be fun in several years to look back on their writing and words. I don't think I can wash them though...I did Scotchgard them, but still spent the entire meal saying, "be careful, don't spill on your placemat!", which kind of took away from the peacefulness of the meal. I guess I'll just have to relax and we can use the stains as memories as well...as in, "remember that year that Harry spilled his pumpkin pie all over the table?"



Before dinner, we got brave and took advantage of the beautiful weather by attempting a family picure. We set up the tripod and set the timer and hoped for the best. Personally, I preferred it, because I was able to yell all kinds of things at my children like, "you're going to smile and like it, or there'll be no wii for you!" without having the photographer think I was a terrible mother. Actually, it did turn out better than I thought, and we were able to get a couple of good shots... here is one of the less successful ones, where someone had bumped the camera while pushing the timer button and we accidently cropped Maggie out of the pictures for an entire series before we realized it.

It was a good day...and now we can look forward to a good holiday season full of love, joy, and peace. Or arguing, bored children, and a crazy mother. I guess only time will tell.