Much to Be Thankful For

We had much to be thankful for this year at Thanksgiving.

1. For safe travels. We traveled down to MO to be with Dakota's family on the farm. All the family was able to be there this year, which made for a fun and full house.

2. For the fact that Emma wasn't in charge of cooking the turkey. Her recipe for cooking the turkey goes like this, "Shoot a turkey and bake it--in the oven, not the microwave--for 2 minutes at 7 degrees." Instead, Dakota's mom did most of the cooking, and we had a feast of great food!

3. For having a cousin, aunts, uncles and grandparents to entertain our girls for a couple days. The girls loved all the attention, and were really well behaved most of the time.


4. For adding a new cousin to the family the day after Thanksgiving! My sister, Erin, had her baby, Nathan Andrew, on Friday. Wished we could have been there with her in Chicago, but we're looking forward to seeing them and meeting this little guy for the first time in December!


5. For having fun playing outside. There's a lot of room to run around out on the farm, plus small forests to explore and animals to stare at.

6. For having a camera to play/experiment with. I tried a very cool trick, trying to capture moonlight, in an attempt to make an object look just as bright when it's pitch black at night, as it looks during the day. The first picture is at about mid-day, and the second picture is later in the dark of night. There was nothing but moonlight to give light to the second picture--no city lights or any other lights for miles.



7. For musical abilities. --Not mine, that would be from Dakota's side. Everyone in his family plays something, including his dad. So it was fun to hear them all come together and play Christmas songs.


8. For good Black Friday sales. I'm not a morning person--not even kind of. I tried getting up at 4am one year to go get some deals, and my body hated me for it. But Dakota and I did go out around 8am, drove for a 1/2 hour to the nearest town, and browsed what was left on the shelves of Walmart after the "serious shoppers" had had their fill. But the best deals we found were at an indoor garage sale (very random) where there were tons of girl's clothes (many with tags still on) for only $.25.

9. For good health. After battling lots of different viruses for what seemed like all of October and November, we managed to stay mostly healthy for our trip. Emma does seem to have an annoying dry cough, but it's hard telling if it's another mild virus or if we're dealing with winter allergies.

10. For my family. I am blessed to have a wonderful husband and two great little girls. It's easy to get caught up in day-to-day life and forget to be thankful for the people around you. But I am thankful they're mine and I'm theirs.