Giving Thanks!!

God has done many amazing things for us this year and we have lots to be thankful for. Last night Nick and I exchanged what we are thankful for this year and this is what we came up with. We are thankful for our beautiful daughter Eden - for her health, her safety, and all the JOY she brings us!! I am personally thankful for my incredibly amazing husband and I know he is thankful for me. We are also grateful for good health. We are thankful for food on the table everyday, for a roof over our heads, for cars that take us where we need to go, and for our jobs. We are also thankful for family and friends!
The thing we have come to realize more than ever this year is that not only do we have these things, but they are not just the bare minimum. We don't have things that are top of the line, but we don't have clunker cars and we don't just have a place to live - we have a home, and we have AMAZING families and incredible friends. They are all nice things and for that we are so grateful. What we remember this time of year is that there are people out there who don't have even half of what we have and it's time to be grateful each day, not just Thanksgiving, for the abundant blessings God has given us and to share those things with others!! Nick and I like to look at Thanksgiving as a preparation for the holiday season because it puts things into perspective for us. It's a day to remember what God has done for us and to get us refocused so we can celebrate Christmas with Christ as our focus and not gifts!

Thanksgiving 2008
To start off how our Thanksgiving went, I first have to share about the night before Thanksgiving. Every year everyone in my family brings an item for the Thanksgiving feast. This year I was to bring homemade yeast rolls, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie, and chocolate pie (which I actually was making 2 chocolate pies - 1 for my family and the other for Nick's family). I realize now how much that is to accomplish - but I was up for the challenge and I love cooking!! I was a little concerned about how I was going to do all of this with Eden around. She loves it when I put her in the front carrier and cook dinner, but I wasn't sure how long that would last and I had a lot to do in the kitchen that day. Thankfully, Nick got off work super early - like around 2 so he took Eden to run some errands and then played with her while I cooked. Before it was time for me to put her down for bed, I had finished the pumpkin pie, rolls, and the sweet potato casserole. All I had left was the chocolate pies, which on paper didn't seem too hard. After I put her down, I started on the pies. I had made the pie crusts from scratch earlier in the day, so I rolled them out and put them in the oven to pre-bake. I got the chocolate pie filling going on the stove and realized that I needed to get the crusts out of the oven. The filling for the crusts have to be continually stirred and watched and I couldn't do both. I asked Nick to come stir while I got the crusts out. As I pulled them out of the oven he was saying - "oh those crusts look good etc, etc" and not paying attention to the pie filling. About that time I looked over and the pot was overflowing with chocolate pie filling all over the stove. It mush have gotten too hot and just bubbled up and out. We got the mess pretty well cleaned up and continued with the stirring. Thankfully, we didn't loose too much mixture so we didn't have to start over. The next step said to add 5 egg yolks and stir until thick. Now, if I wouldn't have had so many things on my mind I would have realized that it's important to temper the eggs before putting into a hot mixture, but through all the commotion, my brain just wasn't working as well! Soon enough the eggs started to cook in the chocolate pie mixture and we ended up with scrambled chocolate pie filling! In an attempt to save our pies, I drained out the eggs and put the mixture into the homemade pie crusts. Right before I put them in the oven I realized I had missed 2 ingredients!!! I sighed out loud and told Nick this and he says, "Oh yeah, the Sisco!!!" I busted out laughing because I knew what he meant - the Crisco!! We decided to melt the Crisco and pour it and the vanilla into the filling. We immediately saw the Crisco form little oil balls all over the top of the pies! What a mess. I ended up calling my mom and we decided to pour the mixture back into the pot and stir it up and let it thicken again. We did this and then put it back in the pies, but they ended up not working out because there were not enough eggs left to hold it together which caused them to be all runny!!! Lesson here - temper your eggs and watch the pot!!!!! HAHA!

Thanksgiving day we did our annual Turkey Trot! This year we did the 2.8 mile family walk because you can't take strollers on the 5 mile run. This year it was my mom, Nick, myself, Eden, and my little brother Connor. It was a lot of fun. Eden stayed in the stroller about half of the walk and then slept in the front carrier on Nick the rest of the way.
After the trot, we got cleaned up and went to my grandparent's house for the yummy meal!! It was delicious! After Eden's nap we went to Nick's family's house for pie! Yumm-o!!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Here is a cute slideshow of our Thanksgiving.

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