Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving 2008

For the past umpteen years my mom's side of the family has celebrated Thanksgiving on the Sunday before at my aunt Janice's house. Since the girls came along we have tried to get a photo of them on this same couch dressed in some holiday duds each year for the sake of comparison.

Instead of simply linking to last year's Thanksgiving post, I thought I'd re-run the last couple of years photos. Here they are at 20 months and 3 months in 2006. That year we were grateful for healthy babies and any sleep we managed to sneak in.



Then there was last year. They were 32 months and 15 months, and this was the best we could do picture wise. If I remember correctly, last year we were extremely grateful for baby proofing devices, gates, and again healthy, happy babies.


This years photo efforts in no way compare with last years' cat herding session... needless to say, we ended up using four individual shots on our Christmas cards last year, but this one little group shot sans Ella from 2007 turned out pretty cute too, so I had to share it.

Thanks to a deal with Shutterfly, I had already ordered my Christmas cards for this year by the time we went to Janice's, so there was no pressure on our 2008 Thanksgiving photos to provide the perfect shot.... and then it ended up turning out pretty good, I think. The lighting wasn't great, but everyone was looking in the same direction and there was no motion this time. Here they are this year at 3.5 years and 2 years old.


This year, with Scott being half way around the world, one of the things we are most grateful for is the fact that God's love and protection extend throughout the entire world. The Sunday school song, "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands" really has new meaning for us this year!

We are so grateful to Scott and all the other soldiers who are serving all around the world and their families who willingly sacrifice time away from their loved ones for freedom's sake. The soldier's job is one of the most unselfish that I can think of.... we are grateful to them all and very proud of Scott!
We are incredibly blessed to be surrounded here at home by a loving, caring family, and further supported by the thoughts and prayers of family far away. We are so grateful! We are encouraged and growing in our faith thanks to a wonderful church family and ministry. We are grateful!
We are thankful that God gives us all the strength we need in every situation . We are thankful for laughter, love, friendships both old and new, and of course, cousins.
We are grateful for the technology that allows us to communicate frequently, freely, audibly, and visually with Scott while he's in Iraq. Without it we would be missing him even worse, and he would be missing out on so much more that the girls are doing and saying these days.

We appreciate the need to be silly every now and then, and we're grateful that we have a host of people around us with whom we are comfortable being exactly that.
The list of things we have to be thankful for this year could go on and on, but I suppose most of all I am grateful for the work that God is doing in all our hearts and lives. Over the last few weeks as we've done Thanksgiving projects, the girls have had ample opportunity to tell me what they are thankful for.... and without fail or any prompting they have all been thankful for people and not things. I think that we're headed in the right direction!
Hope you all had a blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving!

8 comments:

Mommato4miracles said...

Beautiful pics! Just wanted to stop in and wish you a happy thanksgiving

Dorinda said...

Oh I love all your pictures! They are great :) And the girls dresses are just so cute. I can't believe you've done Christmas cards already!

Meg Munson said...

What great pictures! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your beautiful familty!

Anonymous said...

Your girls are so beautiful. Thanks for sharing the wonderful pictures!

Denise said...

What great pictures. They have grown so much and look like little ladies now. That individual shot of Ella is gorgeous!

Annie said...

Awww, isn't it just wonderful when they are thankful for the "right" things and suddenly you feel like you ARE doing something right?? I had that revelation the other day with my 6yo..........made me feel good that he "gets" it......

Misty said...

LOve the dresses. They are so cute! HOw did you ever get them to sit for pictures? I can't get my 4 to sit at all!
And I love the pink tree!

Anonymous said...

great pictures!