Thanksgiving

As cliche as it is, once again I am awed by how much I have to be thankful for. I know that thanksgiving should extend into every day of our lives but it's easy to get caught up in the real world and forget to be grateful.  I tried to not get caught up in the hustle of a traditional "thanksgiving" this year, and it really was the perfect time to do so. Most of our immediate family was out of town so we had a {friends}giving with our bible study friends and I really hope we can make that a tradition!! Thanksgiving day was pretty low key. We had some lunch with my parents, stopped by Brock's grandfathers for a little visit and ended up at home with leftover pumpkin cheesecake. At some point in our day this happened:

&& believe it or not I am thankful for that too. reminds us that life is ((real)) and too short to not enjoy the good moments!

I am perfectlly thrilled to announce that we had a tree up a week ago. Not ashamed one bit. I try to pull every last ounce of the holidays out that I can, and putting the tree up right around Thanksgiving and leaving it up until New Years is part A of that plan.

We are also excited to have these kids to plan awesome holiday traditions for and there are things we are going to do this year and things that will have to wait a few years but it is just such a joy to experience Christmas with kiddos in tow! A whole new ball game! Here are some things we are going to implement into our list of traditions:

-Want, Need, Wear, Read ((see previous post for info on that!))
-Christmas Eve Eve Movie Night: complete with snacks, new PJ's and a new Christmas movie
-Magical Nights of Life: We can check that off the list, as we went on Saturday! & had a blast!

I also have seen a few things that I cannot wait for in the future! One being the tradition of giving Haddie a silver charm each year and on her thirteenth Christmas, giving her the bracelet to put it on. How sweet is that?! I am racking my brain trying to think of something similar to do for Hunter...

Another is that each child has their own wrapping paper. A small piece is then placed in the bottom of their stocking and that's how they know what to start unwrapping! How fun is that? I feel like a little kid just thinking about watching the kids race to see whose is whose.

Any traditions you think everyone should participate in?