I hope that all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving spent with family and ate some great food! I know we did! I had every intention of posting on Thanksgiving day but it was just so crazy around here and the time just got away from me. So now that we are back into somewhat of a routine I thought I would share our weekend in some pictures! Here are some pictures of my babies on Thanksgiving day before we headed out to spend the day with family.

Joel loving on Sissy

Sissy loves to giggle. What a silly girl!

She is so sweet but can be so rotten, but I’m sure you can’t see that….

I am a huge tradition nut, I will admit. I love to make new ones, keep old ones and insist on sticking with them just for the sake of tradition. On Thanksgiving morning, I love to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! Growing up, we always had to leave our house to make it to my Aunt’s for lunch before the parade was over, so I love that now I am able to lounge in my jammies and watch the whole entire parade because our families don’t get together until later in the afternoon. Joel was really into watching it this year with me. The only thing was, he didn’t understand why we couldn’t just go to the parade instead of having to watch it on tv . Of course he LOVES Toy Story, so naturally, he flipped out when he saw the humongous Buzz Lightyear balloon. I loved to watch his little face and all his adorable expressions as he took it all in. My hope is that someday, we can make it to NYC to see it in person.

After the parade was over we got ready and headed out for our first meal of the day at Jay’s brother and sister-in-laws house with his side of the family. Then we made our way out to my Aunts house for our second meal. So much good food, such little time. I must say, I was pretty proud of myself this year and how well I paced myself.

I really thought that Thanksgiving would be more difficult than it ended up being. I suppose that I was trying to prepare myself for the worst so that I wouldn’t be caught off guard. I only got emotional once, which I think was pretty good. Of course I wish that my mom could have been there to celebrate with us, but I felt her presence there in the company of  my grandparents, aunts, brothers, husband and kids. I spent a lot of time the night before and morning of, thinking about how, yes, we had lost someone so special to us and normally on Thanksgiving I would give thanks for the people in my life and there would be one less person there this year to hug and say “I’m so thankful for you” to. Instead, I started to think of all the things that I do have instead of dwelling on the one person that is no longer here. Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t want it to sound like my mom’s life is so minute and insignificant that I can so easily move on. If the circumstances were different, and my mom was still here, and instead we had lost our home in a fire or Jay had lost his job, I know that she would tell me to stop focusing on what we don’t have, and look at all of the other things that we do have to be thankful for. So I took her advice. I started to thank God for everything that I could think of. Big and small. Thank you for my wonderful husband who loves and cares for me. Thank you for my healthy, happy babies. Thank you for my sister, brothers, brother-in-law and sweet nephews. Thank you for my wonderfully supportive extended family and in-laws. Thank you for leading us to such a wonderful church family. Thank you for our warm home that is filled to the seams with love. But most of all, thank you Lord for sending your precious baby boy to bear my sins so that I can be reunited with my mom again in paradise! Without that last part, non of the previous would have been brought to existence. I suppose that it may have happened the way it did, but I wouldn’t realize how precious it all is without Him. I think that I can honestly say that this will be a happier Christmas season for me in some senses. I appreciate the meaning of Christmas in a whole new light this year because of my mom’s passing.  It is so much more personal. I pray that you all will have a very blessed Christmas season that is filled with more love than you can bear! On that note, here are a few more pictures from The Lights Before Christmas at the zoo.

Many, many blessings!

Emily

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