Giving Thanks

We've hosted Thanksgiving since before we were married. Yes folks, my husband and I lived together before we were married. Oops, my kids will be reading this someday... I mean, my husband and I did not live together and were in fact both virgins when we got married. Yes, that's it. I almost forgot.

Every year, we've had a "Thanksgiving Disaster". Ok, that's an exaggeration. Most of them haven't really been disasters, except for the time that we caught the oven on fire and the fire department had to come and put it out. Of course, having a bunch of hot firemen in your house is never a disaster. Then there was the time that my sister forgot the turkey at her house, and had to turn around halfway through their two hour drive to my house to go back and get it. I think we broke the disposal in the sink by cramming potato peels down it on two different occasions. We had to buy a new stove and oven the year we let a pot overflow and drowned the electronic components. There was the year that we decided not to let our Mom cook anything anymore when she used beef broth for the gravy, forgot the sugar in the pecan pie and the stuffing was so dry the guys ended up making some "Stove Top" just so they'd have something to eat.

This year's official Thanksgiving Disaster was just as we were going to serve our amazing meal, we discovered there was no gravy. I thought my sister was bringing it, and she thought I was responsible for it. She's got some kind of email proving her innocence, but hey - how easy is that to come up with after the fact. (hee, hee. Just kidding Kir. It was my fault everyone!)

Anyway, this ended up being the best Thanksgiving Disaster ever! My sister-in-law and her new husband ran out to Safeway to get some gravy, but the kids were starving. We decided to go ahead and serve them while we waited. By the time they were back with the gravy, the kids were long done and off playing. All the adults then served up our meal and sat down to eat. To the most relaxing Thanksgiving meal since my sister and I have had kids! It was pure heaven. Why didn't we think of this before? We didn't have to get up once to fetch anything for anyone but ourselves.

Notice my sister in this picture in the background, bringing food to the kid's table during Thanksgiving dinner, part one.

The thing I am most thankful for this day of giving thanks is family. We were able to spend such a wonderful day with my sister's family, listening to all the cousins laugh and play. The best part was at the end of the night, after we'd bathed all the kids and they were in their jammies reading bedtime stories. I remembered that my Mom wanted a picture of her with all her Grand kids, who were at that point tired and in no mood for pictures, but you'd never guess that based on this great picture! That's because, she ran behind my couch and yelled "where's Mommy?", then popped up making googly faces at the kids. Apparently, my sister could have a career in kid's comedy, because they thought that was the most hilarious thing ever. Can you please come over every time I want to get a picture of my kids smiling?

Thanksgiving has also inspired me to think a lot about gratitude. I'm going to start a regular post topic about things I'm grateful for. I think it's good to remember those things. Now, I'm just trying to come up with a good title... Thankful Thursday? Ideas welcome.