Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving this year was a rather small gathering as Holly and Ray x 2 were in Kentucky. Also, we left shortly after Thanksgiving dinner with mom to head to Branson for the weekend. 

I do love Thanksgiving as I have always thought being thankful is core to our being. Then, I began reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and I became even more enthralled with the idea that thanksgiving truly is at the core of our lives ... or at least that it should be. I will have to do a post in the future on the book as I am reading it a second time and hope to really glean all of the beauty out of her poetic language as well as discover how God wants me to use the valuable message. 

Anyhow, our Thanksgiving festivities began as always ... at our play dates. We had this awesome idea to make thanks giving trees. We used my Cricut and some of Sarah's cartridges to cut out the leaves. We gave the leaves to our girls and had them write things they were thankful for. In hindsight, I wish I had them write one for each day, but the flurry of thanks writing was fun, too. Finally, we found sticks in the yard, painted some pots from Hob Lob, and called it a Thanksgiving tree. I do love how they turned out. 

Here are the girls posing with our family tree.

The girls each holding "their" trees. 

Jenna used play dough to make little leaves on the her tree.

The top one is Jenna's. It says "Cheetos, daddy, and crackers". Ha!

And these are our Jeremiah leaves. 

Of course we are so thankful for him and the life that we lived with him.

I absolutely LOVE seeing his name written in Emma's handwriting. Love! Love! 

Then, on Thanksgiving we spent Thanksgiving lunch with the Hays. I am so sad that I didn't get any pictures! :o(  It seems that in my attempt to not forget any children these days, I often forget to leave my house with my camera. Do I get brownie points for not leaving any children behind?!?!

That evening my side of the family came over. Like I said, we had a quick get together and then we headed out. 

Brittany and the girls colored placemates. So precious! Good job Brittany! ;o)

Oh and these hats! These are a shout out to Aunt Holly! 

She painstakingly made 10 of these late one night for us and several of our friends. 

Aren't they adorable?!

(The hats not the kids! :o))

Okay, the kids are pretty adorable, too! 

Our attempt at a picture of all the children. Such a task!

This Thanksgiving was interesting to me. I realized as the day approached that I was holding my breath a bit. This was the only holiday we were ever able to celebrate with Jeremiah. I wasn't sure if I wanted to make a big deal about it or forget the holiday was even coming. As I lived through these only two months that I shared with my little guy, I often found myself almost holding my breath not wanting the time to slip away so quickly again.

Thankfully, through God's grace, I was able to really feel the verse Jeff picked out for J's head stone: Phil 4:13 "I thank my God every time I remember you." I am so glad that Jeff chose that verse. He kept asking me what we wanted to put on the headstone, and shamefully, I, lover of words, was unable to even fathom finding the right words to place on his little marker. So, I told Jeff to do it, and he did find the strength and courage that I was unable to muster up.

Here is a pic of our three guys on our only holiday together. Despite the deep sorrow I can begin to plunge myself in when I let myself wander down these roads, I look at pictures like this, and I thank my God every time I remember Jeremiah and those two months we had.

Micah, Noah, and Jeremiah

And, fittingly, my sister, Holly, also made these cute hats!