My Thanksgiving Photo Post

We spent Thanksgiving with my parents and family this year. Three weeks ago.  And I took 597 photos. I know the exact number because I completely filled up my memory card. It's taken me this long to go through and edit them all! 

And there still aren't that many good ones. We planned matching Thanksgiving outfits. The weather was cloudy and with optimal conditions for outside photos. The conditions were favorable in so many ways, but still one really great one. I guess that's what happens when most of your subjects are under three. I admire real photographers more than you can imagine. 

This is what you get when you tell a two-year-old to get "cheek to cheek" with his older cousin. 

And this is what you get when the two bigger boys are doing their very best to humor you.

These next few photos are called "Boys Eating Oranges". They aren't amazing, but the subjects sure are cute!

Isaac helping his daddy make Pico de Gallo. My brother is a whiz at pico because his fine motor skills are pretty amazing. He can chop all the ingredients so finely and evenly. I know he appreciated the help, too. :)

The girls' photo shoot went a bit better.

Or maybe not. Hee Hee.

More photos of Thanksgiving Day. Mimi crafting with Lincoln and Phoebe.

Carrie and Sarah

It's just not Thanksgiving without a sword fight.

Or a friendly day of football.

 

That ends in a dog pile.

Photos at the park. Thank Heavens for nice weather!

Once Thanksgiving was "officially" over, all the kiddos donned their holiday best. 

So we decided to have a little mini photo shoot. You can imagine how that went.

Most of these just make me laugh. 

Even though my photos weren't as amazing as I'd wanted them to be, they will help us remember the Thanksgiving of 2012. Because that's the cool thing. My photos may not be beautiful, but the memories are. 

What's Cooking Wednesday: German Chocolate Pound Cake

I got out of the habit posting my "What's Cooking Wednesday" during November since I was posting 30 Days of Thankful. It worked out (sort of) because I didn't bake as much during the month of November. But I had one recipe that I was *dying* to share.

Let me give you a little back story. Brad's birthday is in November and he loves German Chocolate Cake. It was the groom's cake at our wedding...well, without the traditional coconut-pecan icing because I think it's ugly so we had a coconut-pecan filling with dark chocolate icing. So much prettier. But I digress. I don't like it very much and it's not the easiest cake to make, either. Actually the cake part is no trouble, but the icing is a pain because it's cooked. Cook it too long and it's too runny. Cook it not long enough and it's runny. You have to cook it just right to make it stick and you know how bad I am at the precision part of baking so my icing always runs off the cake.  Highly frustrating for a cake I don't care much for. But because it's Brad's birthday, I always feel like I should make him one for his birthday. 

Then I found a recipe for a German Chocolate Pound Cake and I felt it was easy enough that I probably couldn't screw it up. And my Aunt Anna offered to make Brad his own German Chocolate Cake (from scratch!) at Thanksgiving so I was off the hook. 

Yippee!

The cake was a hit...both with Brad and our Huddle students. I thought it needed sharing because maybe there's some other baking-challenged woman out there who needs to make a German Chocolate Cake for someone special in her life. This is you answer, my friends!

German Chocolate Pound Cake

1 box German Chocolate cake mix (I don't remember what brand I used. I don't think it matters.)

1 tub coconut pecan icing

4 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 1/3 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, beat together all the ingredients except the icing. Beat for  2 minutes. Stir in icing. Pour into a greased and floured bundt cake pan (I used Baker's Joy). Bake for 1 hour. (Mine probably took a little longer because my oven cooks slow. I probably just baked it until my cake tester came out clean.) Cool in pan 10 minutes. Invert onto serving platter and wait at least 10 more minutes, but I let mine cool completely. 

Recipe adapted from MRS. HAPPY HOMEMAKER

Show and Tell: Two Baby Quilts

Even though I feel very old and way past all that "baby" stuff, my friends keep having babies. Because of that, I've made a couple of baby quilts in the last few weeks. 

One for a baby boy...

And what is more "boy" than cowboys?

And one for a girl...

In beautiful shades of vintage pink and blue.

And I have to admit, it's still kind of fun to think about a baby all swaddled up in them. The whole world should a blanket of its own.

Day 29 & 30

Day 29:

I am thankful for my children's teachers. All of them.  Every year, preschool and elementary, we have been blessed by women who care and give and work exceptionally hard to make sure my children are successful...whether it's at reading or math or sharing their toys. These women have gone above and beyond what's expected of them and I am so grateful that my children were surrounded by love even when they were not at home.


Day 30:

I am thankful for my Lord. All this month, I've been looking at my life and the ways I've been blessed. It seemed only fitting, on this last day, to give praise to the One who orchestrated it. And my life is blessed. Charmed, you might say. For those looking in from the outside, I may seem to have it all together. My faith and life might seem trite and gilded. But we are all broken and sick and shattered. At times (too many it seems) I'm holding onto my faith by a too-thin thread and my belief in an all-loving God is hazy at best. But deep down, way down deep under all the ugly, hidden, damaged, dark places in my soul is light I cannot ignore or deny. My God is a God of love and redemption and peace and hope and grace. I am so very, very grateful for that in ways I cannot even begin to articulate.



Happy 30 Day of Thankful. Thanks for sharing in this with me. 

Day 27 & 28

Day 27:

I am thankful for old friends. Those friends who knew who you were and remind when you've forgotten. Those friends that you haven't seen in so very long, and yet you start right back up where you left off. Those friends who hold a special, dear place in your heart and in your memory. The girl friends you can't wait to spend a weekend with. The only ones you'll stay up till 2:00am for just to keep talking. The young couple friends who can remember what it was like before kids with you. The ones who would skip Sunday School class to hang out. The friends who know the real you and change you for the better. 

Day 28:

I am thankful for my "new" friends. The friends who've only known me as a wife and a mom and a cancer-survivor. The friends who know my children well and love them. The friends who know how crazy controlling I am and just laugh it off. The friends I miss so much now that my life is so super busy we have to schedule Girls Night Out three months in advance. The friends that make my life in Amarillo a happy place. 

Day 25 & 26

Day 25 & 26

I am thankful for my Huddle and the couple that leads with us, Bryan and D'Lynn. I am thankful for the students who share their lives with us. It's a gift I'm not sure they realize yet, but we recognize what a treasure it is. And we do treasure it. The four of us store those precious moments of laughter and struggle in our hearts to carry around with us. These students bless us in a hundred ways and don't even know it. 

The St. John's are a special gift. They are friends, but so much more. They are my children's "in-town" grandparents. We look to them for truth and parenting advice. They ache when we ache and celebrate when we celebrate. Amarillo would be an ugly, bitter place for us if not for them.

Day 22, 23, & 24

Day 22:

I am thankful for extended family. For this big, connected group of people who all smooshed together and made me what I am. I am thankful that I was able to spend the holiday with all my grandparents. It doesn't happen very often anymore what with in-laws and on/off Thanksgivings, but this year it did. I am thankful for great big grown-up second  cousins who played football with my little boy all afternoon. (And I mean great big cousins. Both are well over 6 foot. Giants, in more ways than one, to my little man.) I am thankful for great-aunts and uncles who bring a richness to my life. I am thankful for grown-up cousins who went from being an annoying bully to a funny, favorite Facebook friend. I am thankful for aunts and cousins who are more like aunts to who are different versions of mom to me. I am thankful for all the other colorful characters, who through birth or through marriage, were knitted together in this crazy quilt called family. 

Day 23:

I am thankful for the health of my children. Phoebe had a nasty stomach bug on the Friday after Thanksgiving. As I sat with her and held her hair back as she threw up and put cold dish rags on her forehead, I couldn't help but think of parents who do this, and so much more, every single day. Having dealt with a lifetime of sickness, I am so thankful that my children don't have to. They are free from blood draws and fatigue and countless doctors and scans and x-rays and so much more. They bounce back quickly from tummy bugs and sore throats and I am grateful.



Day 24:

I am thankful for modern technology. Seriously. We drove back from Dallas on Sunday. It took us all day. We drove a different route to pick up a cartop carrier which added an extra hour or so, but it's a long drive anyway. I am thankful for DVD players and handheld game systems and cell phones and iPads. I'm pretty sure I would have killed my children otherwise. I am grateful that I don't have to make that drive like my parents did as children, with one child stretched across the back dashboard and no seat belts. 

Day 21: Thanksgiving

Despite all my big plans to stay on top of things, I got to my parents' house and didn't even get out my computer. It was a good week! :) Instead of doubling up, I'm giving what would have been Thanksgiving its very own post...especially since this is the reason for the whole shebang.

Day 21:

I am thankful for this life I get to lead. It's one of pain and sickness and heartache, sure, but it's also one of laughter and joy and love...even when I refuse to see it. I have been blessed with so much that a mere 30 days is not enough to cover it. And all of this from the one true God who is truth and life and love. 

I am blessed indeed.

Day 19 & 20

Day 19

I am thankful for my siblings. I'm thankful for the ones I've had since childhood. The ones who shared the weirdness of our immediate family (because all families are weird and only your siblings truly "get" the weirdness). The ones who can complete this sentence "a loaf of bread...a stick of butter...". The ones who got rained on every single time we went camping for five straight years. The ones who laughed with me during Sunday school class that one time while watching that horrible video about the woman who forgot the last 30 years of her life every single day she woke up and we were the only ones laughing. (It really was a sad story, but the Jolly siblings have the same sense of humor and we found some part of it hilariously funny.)

I'm thankful for the ones I gained through marriage. Either by my marriage to Brad or by their marriage to my blood siblings. Because for better or for worse, you really do marry the entire family. I am thankful that they brought their own wonderful weirdness to the crazy dynamics already in place.

Day 20

I am thankful for nieces and nephews. I'm thankful for the ones on Brad's side before we got married who made me want children of my own. I'm thankful for the ones born after I had my own children who reminded me why loving children other than your own is so rewarding. (You get to spoil them and love them without having the responsibility of child-rearing.) Being an aunt is a beautiful thing and I am thankful for the children who made me one. 

30 Days of Thankful: Day 17 & 18

I'm going to write Days 17 & 18 together and write them as one. I wanted to give them both a day, but it's impossible to write about my Dad without writing about my Mom and vice versa. But while they are so entwined in my life, they are still two whole, individual people. Days 17 &18 seemed fitting.

I am thankful for my mom and my dad. They are, to put it simply, great parents. They weren't (and aren't) perfect, but they have a sense of humor about life and about themselves that makes us (almost) forget that. My mom is kind and shy. She will do anything for those that she loves. Her life is marked by that service. She is creative and beautiful and generous. My dad is loving and protective. He feels deeply and laughs often. He is a teacher and a friend. Together they are godly parents and doting grandparents. They gave me wonderful childhood, not full of stuff, but full of love and memories and strength. They love my children fiercely and remind me (often) of the wonderful things about them when I forget. I am blessed by their legacy and their love.