Meriahna and Sydney's Thankfuls

Rachel: So girls, what are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

Sydney: My family!

Meriahna: Cheese!...and polar bears.

Sydney: And penguins.

This Weekend

I got a little behind this weekend on my thankfuls, so I want to catch up as we are approaching Thanksgiving week!

This Friday, I was so thankful for date nights with my husband.  We went out for Thai food and watched It's a Wonderful Life, the second installment of our Christmas Movie weekly watching.

On Saturday, I was extremely thankful that Johnny spent the entire day working on finishing painting the trim.  He finished all the windows and is almost done with the crown molding and the built-ins.  We got one set of curtains hung, and it's starting to look exactly like I wanted.

And finally for today, I am thankful for art.  I bought this print by Matte Stephens a few months ago from etsy and never got it framed until a few days ago.  Johnny and I picked it out together and now it's hanging above our bed; I think it turned out to be really cute.  I definitely recommend www.etsy.com as a great place to get cheap art as well as www.20x200.com.  I've been really pleased with all the pieces I've gotten from both places.

Thursday, November 17

Today I am very thankful for my grandparents on my mom's side.  Papa had a birthday this week, and I'm so thankful that Baby Hutson will get to know his/her great grandparents.  Happy Birthday Papa!

Honesty is the Best Policy?

Today I am thankful for words "out of the mouths of babes"...or at least our of Sydney's mouth.

This morning, while the girls were getting ready for school, I was sitting on the stairs waiting to brush their hair.  Sydney came up and sat down next to me.  She took a long look at me and said, "Well, we're getting a little fat aren't we?"  I responded, "Yes, yes we are."

Later today, after showing Sydney and Meriahna my Christmas cards that I just got in the mail from Shutterfly, Sydney pointed to the picture and said, "That's a great picture! It doesn't make you look that fat!"

I'm not sure when she decided that "You're not fat, you're pregnant!" doesn't apply anymore.  But apparently it doesn't...and I'm going to go eat some Girl Scout Cookies before Johnny gets back from his run.

Monday and Tuesday

What I wanted to write for yesterday...and then forgot to...was that I am very thankful for Winstead's Cherry Limeades!  For those of you who don't live in Kansas, Winstead's is an old restaurant that serves steakburgers, milkshakes, fries, and other heart attack-inducing food items that are so good.  I was frustrated yesterday and went and got a Cherry Limeade, and do you know what? I was in a much better mood after that.

Today I am thankful for new friends.  I am going to a recipe exchange party tonight with the women of our new church.  I am bringing Spiced Pumpkin Bread as well as the recipe for it.  I've tried probably five different pumpkin bread recipes, and with a few tweaks, this one is the best.  I thought you all might like it as well!

Spiced Pumpkin Bread
Adapted from Colonial Cooks!

1 C Sugar (could do less or use part honey)
1/2 C Apple Sauce
2 Eggs, beaten
1 C Canned Pumpkin
1/3 C Apple Cider
1 1/4 C White Flour
3/4 C Whole Wheat Flour
1 Tsp Baking Soda
1 Tsp Salt
1/4 Tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Allspice
1/2 Tsp Ground Cloves
1 Tsp Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Nutmeg
1/3 C Chocolate Chips (more or less)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix sugar and apple sauce.  Add eggs, pumpkin, and apple cider.  Mix thoroughly.  In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients and add to pumpkin mixture.  Stir just until moistened.  Add chocolate chips.  Bake in greased bread pan for 1 hr.

Tradition!

Now that the holidays are coming up, I'm getting very excited and thankful for all of the traditions that I had growing up as well as some of the new ones that Johnny and I are starting. Here's a few of my favorites:

On November 1st, my household celebrates Christmas Music Day. On this day and all days after that until Christmas, it is appropriate, nay encouraged, to listen to Christmas tunes.

On Thanksgiving, when we were younger, my cousins and my sister and I would put on plays about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving. It's very unfortunate that those little gems of performances stopped happening.

Something that I love the most about the holidays is watching Christmas movies.  I have even scheduled all of our favorites on my calendar so that we won't miss any important ones.  Last night, Johnny and I watched The Muppet Christmas Carol while eating pizza for our date night.  So good.



One Christmas tradition that I cannot participate in this year is ice skating on Christmas Eve.  My mom would always take us with our cousins and whoever else was in town, and Melody and I would discuss what Christmas presents we thought we were getting while slowly going around and around and around the rink.

Another Christmas tradition that I think my grandparents started us on was finding the pickle ornament on the Christmas tree, a German tradition...since we have no German blood whatsoever.  But the person who finds it gets whatever money is attached to it.  Jessie usually wins.

Now that kiddos are on the way, Johnny and I are hoping to continue these traditions and add a few of our own as well.  

What holiday traditions do you have?

We Are Family

I am very thankful this Saturday that Johnny and I grew up in such loving, Christ-centered families.  

And now our kids get to have two wonderful sets of grandparents, three aunts, and one really cool uncle...and one nice dog and one dog that will bite them if they sneeze.  We're working on teaching the baby to hold it in.

Thankful Mama

Johnny and I are very thankful today for my big giant belly and what's inside it.  This pregnancy has been especially wonderful and scary since the loss of our first baby, so every day that I feel little kicks and back pain, I am extremely thankful.  Thank you Lord for a healthy baby and our future family.

Two for One

Actually it's more like two for two because I got behind one day.  For Wednesday, I am thankful for crafts. Yes, laugh all you want, but I love having the time and ability to take a bunch of scraps and make something fun, like this wreath.



I took a bunch of scrap fabrics from quilts that I had made (Meriahna and Sydney had fun picking out patterns they recognized from pajamas and quilts that I had made them).  Then I cut the scraps into strips about  1.5in by 5in, give or take.

Using an old wreath frame from Hobby Lobby, I individually tied the strips onto the frame with single knots.

Push all the knots together, and eventually, you get a wreath!



And for November 10, I am thankful for living close to family.  Johnny and I had my cousin Melody and her husband Brett over for dinner last night.  It's really fun to have grown up together and now be living near each other, knowing that our kids will get to grow up together too...though they need to hurry up and have a cousin for Baby Hutson.

November 8 Slightly Late

Hands down, no question, today I am thankful that Johnny's third test is OVER! I'm even more thankful that he felt good about it. So good about it that he went to Trader Joe's and bought some Christmas toffee. Now we just wait eight weeks to get the results...

Fall

Fall is officially here and here to stay. I am and have always been thankful for Fall for a few reasons. I love crisp weather that requires scarves and fires. I love gearing up for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And I especially love Fall cooking and baking.



For book club tonight I decided to make brown sugar cookies using my new leaf cookie cutter that I got for about a dollar.

So easy...

...and so darn good.  Throw some brown sugar icing on top, and you have the perfect fall treat.  Apparently these went really well with the mulled wine that everyone else got to drink at book club.  I thought they tasted just fine with apple cider.

If you think about it, say a prayer for Johnny.  He has his third actuarial exam in the morning (11/08), and he would really like to pass.  He won't find out for eight weeks, but it would be great to walk away from it feeling good.

November 6

Coming in just after the deadline on this one.  Today I am thankful for Sundays.  Johnny and I decided to be more diligent about making our Sundays actual days of rest.  We've been discussing what that looks like and have kind of come up with a tentative template.  So, on our Sundays we like to go to church, read books, do projects and activities together, eat dinner with family, and pretty much rest.  Things we try to avoid doing are studying for tests (Johnny), cleaning the house (Rachel), running lots of errands, and watching T.V.

We're certainly not perfect in keeping this, but when we try, we really like the results.  

Hooah

This weekend I am especially thankful for the United States Military, particularly the Army.



Not only did the Army make it possible for Johnny to go to Wheaton so that we could eventually meet each other, fall in love, and get married, but the Army also happens to protect my country and others from dangers that we civilians could not handle on our own.  Think and say what you will about whoever is in charge at whatever moment in time, but one thing is for sure, we should always be thankful for our men and women in uniform who put their lives on the line and their relationships on hold to protect us from those who want to harm us.

Hug a soldier today; I did.

November 4

Today I am thankful for my sister and my brother, Jessie and Mitchell.



We've grown up together and ended up being much more similar than we would have ever thought.  Not one of us is particularly good at or cares about sports.  We all seem to prefer the arts over the sciences, and our sarcasm will every once in awhile get us in trouble.



Jessie and Mitchell are also particularly good at Bollywood style dancing.



I am thankful for Jessie's really big heart, her Gilmore Girls-quick wit, and her preppy phase because I'm still benefiting from those hand-me-ups.  The skater phase...not so much.



I'm thankful for Mitchell's equally big heart, his thoughtfulness, and the L.A. Juice coupons he used to give me for birthday presents.

I guess Tess counts as a sibling...I'm just thankful that I haven't sneezed around her lately.

Thanksgiving Countdown: 20 days

4 Books = Personal Pan Pizza

Something that I have always been thankful for is books, so today I wanted to draw special attention to my personal gratitude for literature (notice I say literature and not those non-fiction books Johnny has lying around the house).



I have always enjoyed the role that books played in my life -- from going to the library with my mom, to getting free pizza from Pizza Hut, to eagerly scanning my lit classes' syllabi, and more recently to reading certain texts six times in one day with my students. I love reading.  I love watching the plot unfold in my mind's eye, and in the last few years, I've really loved the success of digging through and deciphering more complex literature.

Now that I'm moving into stay-at-home-mom mode, I've had to reevaluate how I do reading.  It's not longer assigned to me by a teacher, professor, or boss.  I get the pleasure of picking, but with that freedom comes the lack of a due date.  In order to help this problem in one small way, I decided to start a book club.  Our first meeting is next week, and our first book is The Book Thief.  I just finished it and can't wait to discuss it.  But for today, I am very thankful for books and the moments of happiness, sorrow, fear, laughter, and confusion that they have brought me the last twenty-four years.

November 2nd

In keeping with my daily thanksgiving, in no particular order, I decided that today I am thankful for our yard (at least that's what I kept telling myself as I raked the leaves).



The yards that we currently have are bigger than the yards of our last four homes combined and multiplied by about twenty.  After living with tiny concrete slabs in Philadelphia, it's really nice to actually have a front yard and a back yard that we can call our own.  It's also nice not to be sharing walls with loud neighbors...even if that means that after ten bags of leaves I'm nowhere near being done raking the front.

Doesn't that tree in the front look like it would make a great tire swing tree?

A Thankful Heart is a Happy Heart

Now that we're moving into November and getting closer to Thanksgiving, I have decided to copy off one of the blogs that I follow (barefootinthekitchen) and acknowledge one thing that I am thankful for each day of this month.



Number One is obvious: this guy.  Not only is Johnny my wonderful husband of almost three years and the father of our child, but he's also the main bread winner for our family.  He's been in this same position on the couch every day for the last month studying for his next actuarial exam.  So I'm thankful for his willingness to work hard to pay for all the bon bons that I eat while doing laundry at home.

P.S. Happy Christmas Music Day!  I hope you indulged yourself in a little "Jingle Bells" and "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch" today...I certainly did.