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.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

A Trip to the Zoo!

Today we took Eden on her first trip to the zoo! Nick has Tuesday's off, so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and have a family outing. Being a week day, there was not a whole lot of people there and since it was cooler, all the animals were out sunning. We got to see all of the animals and it was so neat to spend the day together. Eden's favorite animals were the big ones like the elephants and giraffes. She also loved the aquariums and the reptile house. I think she liked all the colors and things moving around. We carried her around in the front baby carrier and she kept making these cute noises and kick her legs and flail her arms when she would get excited about seeing something. She also liked seeing all the kids on field trips running around (I think that was probably more entertaining to her than the animals). We had a blast and she was totally worn out when we got home.
Here are some pictures from our fun family day!

Collin & Kristin

I have been meaning to post about my brother and sister-in-law, Collin & Kristin, for a while now and just now have had the chance. Two weekends ago they came into town and we hosted a baby shower for them. We also took their maternity pictures that morning. It was such a great weekend. We had so much fun spending time with them and getting to see them again. As mentioned in a previous post, Collin and Kristin used to be our neighbors, but in October they moved to Fort Worth. We have missed them so it was nice to see them! I made my first attempt at baking and decorating a cake and I think it turned out pretty good. My friend Jenni, who is an official cake decorator, gave me lots of pointers and great tips (I would have had her to do it but she doesn't live near us). The shower theme was "ABC - or alphabet." My grandfather created their baby's name (Cayden Glenn Day) out of wood and it connected like a train - it even had an engine and caboose. We put it up on the mantle and it looked so cute and went well with the theme (I didn't get any pictures of it). As Collin & Kristin opened their gifts we had whoever's gift they were opening to give a piece of advice - but the fist person had to start their advice with the letter "A", then the next person "B" etc etc. It was cute and surprisingly everyone was actually really creative and the advice was great!
We are so excited for Cayden to get here. Just another couple months and we will see his sweet face!

Here are some pictures from the weekend!

Maternity Pictures

The Alphabet Cake


I made these letters for the shower and for Collin & Kristin



Have a great week!!
-Carissa

What I woke up to this morning...

Eden usually wakes up at 4:00 to nurse and Nick gets up to get ready for work at 5:00 so I just keep Eden in our bed until she wakes up for the day. This morning she woke up around 6:30 and I was not wanting to get up so I just ignored her for a little bit. She was talking and playing and when I rolled over to talk to her, this is what I saw!!!




Isn't that so funny! She didn't have any toys to play with so she created some with her socks. She looked like a little puppy wanting to play fetch! Hehe!

-C

Our Little Pumpkin

We finally got a chance to take Eden's 6 month pictures. We figured out that Eden really does not like the grass, but luckily we had an A&M blanket in the car. We didn't have a whole lot of time but we definitely got some cute ones. Here are some of our favorites!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!
I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween! For Halloween this year we went to a block party hosted by our friends from church Tim and Mel. We didn't get to stay long because it was Eden's bedtime, but we had fun helping set up and get ready for it. For her first Halloween Eden was a little ladybug. She was so cute in her little outfit. She wasn't so fond of the hat (her little ladybug antenas) - she kept taking it off and putting it in her mouth. She did pretty good until we tried to take pictures of her. We discovered that she really does not like grass - haha. We sat her down in front of some hay bails and pumpkins they had set up in their yard, and she sat in it only for a moment before she let us know she wanted up!! On the way home from the party she cried pretty much the whole way home letting us know we kept her out a little too late.
When I was growing up, my parents created a Halloween night tradition that we always looked forward to. When we were little, we would dress up and go trick or treating, but once we were a little too old for that - we enjoyed this tradition. We would always go to our favorite chinese restaurant, Panda Garden, then go to Barnes & Noble. At the bookstore we were allowed to get one book. This was always so much fun and a great childhood memory. Since we didn't get to stay long at the block party, Nick and I ordered some chinese from Panda Garden and enjoyed a part of my family's tradition as well!!

Here are some pictures from the evening!

*ps...sorry we haven't posted Eden's 6 month photos, we are in the process of getting those done. We were suppose to do them last weekend, but Nick got sick and then passed his cold onto me, so we will have those up soon. Thanks for staying tuned!

Happy Half Birthday, Eden!

Can you believe it? Neither can we. Our little bundle of joy is now 6 months. I was watching some video we took of Eden when she was just a few weeks old and it is AMAZING how far along she has progressed since then. As of now, she is still the VERY busy girl she always has been except now she is doing the following: rolling over, grabing anything in site, jabbering (all the time), trying really hard to sit up (I give it one more week and she will be doing it on her own), scooting (she hasn't mastered the arms so it's just the legs pushing her around with her face to the floor - haha) starting solids, oh yeah and TEETHING! That's right Eden sprouted 2 teeth last week! One has come through more than the other and it's so cute. She's been quite the handful as I'm sure it bothers her, but so far not as bad as I think it probably could be. We have been so blessed by her and can't picture our lives without her. She is so much fun and it's so amazing to see her growing and learning beautifully!

Here are some pictures I took of her this morning. It was chilly which made me excited because I got to put her in this cute little outfit - perfect for the weather. Enjoy and stay tuned for Eden's 6 month photo shoot!