Thanksgiving

I'm gonna get out of order here and cover thanksgiving on time. I'll go back and continue to catch up.

We had a pretty typical thanksgiving yesterday. Got up, started cooking, dressed nice, and sat around. ;)

Here Nathan is trying to talk Levi into being excited about football being on ALL DAY. He was not won over.

Nathan has a treasured tradition of eating celery with cream cheese and peanut butter from morning till night on thanksgiving. So far neither child is on bored, but they will eat spoonfuls of peanut butter.

Sometimes I get a little bogged down by feeling like holidays are just like every other day around here since we don't get together with family. So I've always insisted everyone dress fancy to try and make it feel more legitimate. Levi's compromise was to come out of his room with his fancy clothes over his spider man costume. You just never know when his spidey senses will demand action.

He's just born for duty. What choice does he have? This is his called to action spiderman face. Though rest assured, that face came out for less honorable purposes many times throughout the day.

Princess Christmas
Though I took many, this is the only usable picture I got of the two of them looking at the camera. I have a million with Levi holding up his side. But Gracie absolutely refuses to make photographic memories appropriately. It has my nickers in a twist.
Feast time. I have to admit, I actually pulled off a decent thanksgiving meal this year. Cooking is not my thing. And though it shames me to confess, I was not in a good mood on thanksgiving. Levi and I were both cranky and irrational, thus causing Gracie to follow suit and Nathan to endure in silent football watching. But I will say that I think the meal was better because I was grumpy.

We added corn on the cob to our menu this year because the kids love it. And, as it turns out, that was the only thing they ate. Oh and rolls. Levi never eats and he seems to have pulled Gracie over to the dark side with him.

post meal snuggle time...

Which leads to dog pile on papa's face

Nathan got Levi and Gracie their own tree. It goes in Levi's bedroom, but somehow it had been dragged out at some point. So I decided to let them decorate it while we listened to Christmas music and Nathan napped on the couch. It was a pretty nice little section of the day.

Here is one of those pictures where Gracie refuses to cooperate. But I just love Levi's handsome face. Sometimes he is just like this pose implies here. Patient and gentle and helpful and peaceful. It's a pretty daunting job of mine to try and convince him to embrace this part of himself and resist the other monstrous impulses. I mean, do I even hold myself accountable to that kind of self discipline? I suppose it's every one's struggle. But oh boy do I need to work on my own example! When I lecture Levi I know every word of it needs to be knocking out my own self centered thoughts.

So that was our thanksgiving. Just a bunch of sinners sitting around, saved by grace but stewing in selfishness. Missing the mark of thankfulness but taking God's fresh mercy the next morning and trying again. And again. And again....