Happy Thanksgiving (and happy 22 month birthday to Ellie-Kate)-- 11/26/09

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We had a very sweet day, starting with our traditional cinnamon rolls around 9:15 a.m. Britti is house/dog sitting at a neighbor's house, and Chelsea spent the night with her so they arrived around 9 a.m.-- just in time for the start of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. We watched bits of the show and then went for a walk to allow time for our turkey to finish thawing. (Had it in the fridge since Sunday, and it still needed to dive in cold water for two hours to be ready for the oven!!)

During Ellie-Kate's nap, the rest of us watched about half of The Santa Clause and relaxed on the couch for a bit before she woke up and we prepared for our very late lunch. Ellie-Kate didn't eat much on her first Thanksgiving, but the rest of us certainly made up for it!!

After our "lunch," Roger and I took another walk while the girls worked on cutting links for our annual thankfulness chain. We got back in time for all of us to write the top 10 things for which we are thankful. What a year that this one has been!!! Anyway, Ellie-Kate was helping to pass out the links when we all got quite the shock. Britti was counting out the links, and she hesitated for some reason right before "eight," and Ellie-Kate filled in the blank by saying "eight." We all looked at each other-- Did we really just hear that?? We DID!! She even continued to count by adding "nine" and "ten." WOW!!! How many 22 month old babies can do that?? She just amazes us more and more every day!!

We finished up the movie while eating dessert (brownies and pie) before decorating the upstairs tree and watching Survivor. All in all, a VERY relaxing and peaceful celebration of our many blessings :)

Ellie-Kate just soaked up all of the traditions of the day as well as the gradual transformation of our home into a Christmas wonderland. She offered her handprint for our new Christmas tree skirt, helped with the construction of our thankfulness chain (saying "thank you" as she moved the links from point A to point B in the room), and learned how to put ornaments on the little tree that we set up in our upstairs sitting area. She just smiled the whole day!!

Tomorrow, Britti, Chelsea, Ellie-Kate and I are headed to Parkersburg for some shopping. I'm hoping to give Ellie-Kate a chance to see Santa (likely from afar) before she has lunch with him next Saturday. Emmy and Roger may go to the OU game, depending on the weather. We're also hoping that the live trees will be on sale in the next day or two so that we can buy and decorate our big live tree before Britti leaves for Ireland on Tuesday.

We pray that you had a terrific Thanksgiving and that you're gearing up for a super holiday season!! More soon--

Christie