Turkey Day 2015

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. Today is December 1st, what?! Jon said over the weekend he was sad that Christmas will be over soon, ha! I have tons of things I want to do with Ford this holiday season and I am so so excited to experience everything Christmas with him. Our Thanksgiving was really laid back and fun. Unfortunately me and the kids got sick over the weekend but life goes on, right? Tis the season for nasty coughs and the never ending snotty nose. My grandparents came down from Kansas City and for the first time in 11 months, my entire family was together! The weekend before our missional community group had friendsgiving and it was absolutely delicious. Followed by a yummy meal on Thursday afternoon. Why don't we do traditional thanksgiving foods more often? This year we added a new side to our dinner, sweet potato casserole with praline topping and oh my gosh... make it asap friends. It rained on Thanksgiving Day but our family managed to get in a post meal walk, we played lots of games, and were entertained by having 4 kids under the age of 3. It is only going to get busier as the kiddos get older (and more kiddos are added to the mix!).

There are so many things I am thankful for this year. What I shared at the table was how thankful I am to feel safe in my home and in my community. In an age of our world where there are refugees literallt fighting to hold on to their babies, I do not take for granted that fact that I sleep well at night knowing I am safe and free. I am so thankful for God's grace and His precious gifts. He gifted us Lucy this year and we are so grateful that the transition to 2 children has been pretty easy. She is such a joy and a light in our lives, I can't believe she wasn't with us last holiday season! And lastly I talked about how thankful I am that so many people love my family. I could have never imagined having family and friends love my babies so fiercely and genuinely. It has been such a blessing to have people swoop in and care for my kids and love on me and Jon as parents. I can't imagine life without this tribe of people that we do life with.

I didn't take many pictures but here are a few I had on my phone. We put up our Christmas decorations and tree over the weekend and are blasting Christmas music daily. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Thanksgiving: this and that

Thanksgiving was a whirlwind for the Hart family. Why is it that babies always get sick during major holidays? That I don't quite know but sickness struck our household last week and it wasn't pretty. Monday afternoon Ford had a 101.7 fever which was the highest it's ever been for him and by the morning it was 104. We took him to his pedi and lo and behold... a double ear infection. I knew something was up when my VERY busy and energetic boy just wanted to cuddle and lay with mama. Oh man it was sad. We started antibiotics right away and that seemed to lighten his spirits. Even though he was under the weather, we spent Thanksgiving with family and now that I think of it... maybe babies get sick during the holidays so their grandparents can love on them. Now I don't want this to come across wrong but I am not a clingy mama. I don't do well with clingy babies. Sure I LOVE playing and cuddling with Ford but I won't pick him up when he demands and give him what he wants when he wants it. He won't always be an only child and I really love that he can play independently and problem solve on his own, it is something Jon and I have worked really hard at which is why being sick stinks. I do give him grace and let loose when he's sick but boy was it a major detox when we left family, Ford was feeling better, and we wouldn't give in to his every request. Oyeeeeeeee. So to top off the week, Ford developed roseola a few days after his fever dropped and he was sporting a red rash all over his belly, face, and legs. Of course! We were so thankful he was acting like himself and sleeping again (5:30am wakeup calls were brutal when he had the fever) but because he was contagious, we spent a lot of time as a little family of 3. We made the best of a crappy situation and it was perfect and sweet. Today we are back in action, I went to Zumba this morning and praised God that Ford ran right into childcare at the gym despite going through a few clingy days and we are rested and healthy! Ford had so much fun helping us put up the Christmas tree and decorations...he squeals with delight when we turn on the lights. He calls our 2 trees, garland, and wreath "tee tee!"....Christmas tree. It is pretty darn cute.

Here are some snapshots into our Thanksgiving week.

My parents have a sport court in their backyard which is endless entertainment for the babies. They run, chase balls, push shopping carts, ride their cozy coupe... the perfect baby sitter.

Helping prepare Thanksgiving dinner!

So many toys at Mimi's

Babies and their uncle James

We love playing Rockband and Ford thinks he's pretty cool with the guitar! He prefers banging the heck out of the drums though.

Siblings

So proud

He loves getting his hair sprayed with water (and spraying himself in the face)

He may be picky with food but drinks are another story...

Helping daddy with Christmas lights yesterday... it was 78 degrees!

Today starts the Advent season, a very special time of waiting, preparation, and celebration for the Christian faith. We are so excited to celebrate as a family this year and we are using our church, The Austin, Stone's, family devotional (along with the personal devotionals for me and Jon). If you are looking for one, here it is! We are also doing a daily fun, Advent activity with ideas from The Mom Diggity (found here).

I hope your Thanksgiving break was full of family, food, and many blessings!

Give me gratitude or give me debt.

I read an article from Momastery yesterday and it really struck me, find it here. I could spend all the time in the world telling you the things that I am thankful for and most of them would probably be superficial but I am humbled by the post above and reminded what a blessing it is to live my life. I may have a long list of projects I want to complete in our house because I hate the non privacy in our backyard and can't wait to finish our media room but then I have to step out of the picture. Ruthie you have a house with a ROOF! I may silently curse against our fridge's ice machine that makes approximately 2 cubes every 48 hours but I have a fridge that keeps my food cold. And food! I have good food! Fruits, vegetables, meats, and junk I don't need. Today I will overindulge, overeat, and fall victim to glutton as we celebrate Thanksgiving. I covet outfits I see on Instagram, ladies so beautifully put together while lugging their kids around town and I forget how lucky I am to own 5 pairs of sweatpants that I rotate on a daily basis. 

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

And my baby! My baby boy who has woken me up the past few mornings before 6am with a runny nose and fever...there are people who would do anything to be up at the crack of dawn with a baby. And soon I will have two! This morning was rough but Ford couldn't stop covering me in kisses, he even makes the smacking sound and leans in when he plants one on me. 

And at the end of the day, material and earthly blessings aside, I have a King who has saved my soul for eternity. Isn't that enough? If I had no house, no food, no baby, would I be grateful to say I was adopted into God's family? I pray earnestly that I would. The world has so much to offer...oh but my God has so much more! So I sit here today feeling thankful for this year's abundant blessings but eyes focused on my eternal blessing that I could never thank Him enough for, but one day I will kneel at at the throne and shout His praises. I look forward to Thanksgiving in heaven. No hungry, no sick, no poor, no orphan, no widow, no broken. Healed and set free. Praise Him for that promise! 

I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness. I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High. -Psalm 7:17

Happy Thanksgiving friends, many blessings from our family to yours. 

Thankful

Ford's first Thanksgiving was perfect. It was simple, laid back, and full of family time, relaxing, games, and of course... lots of food! Obviously Ford didn't get to partake in the gluttony that is Thanksgiving but it is so cute to see Embry have a blast at holidays and know that Ford will be her age next year! It was funny, we had attempted to put Ford down for a nap before we ate but he wanted nothing to do with that. He sat with us at the table and chatted the whole time... party of one! This year what we are thankful for is obvious...our sweet and healthy baby boy. Not only has the Lord blessed us with Ford but an incredible support system of family and friends to help us navigate through the woes of parenthood. Since last Thanksgiving we've been blessed with an incredible gospel centered church, a community that we love like family, a son who brings us more joy than we could have ever expected, and so many things we take for granted- family, health, safety, freedom, forgiveness. 

Catching you up

Anyone else agree that we should get the Monday after Thanksgiving off? Just to catch up on things and decorate our homes for Christmas? Okay maybe that's what I've been doing the past 2 days but now that a terrible cold has bogged me down, I just want to curl up in my bed and attempt sleep. Thanksgiving was awesome for us. Luckily most of our family is in Austin so we rarely have to go out of town for holidays and this year we had my sisters, my brother in law, and my niece, Embry stay with us. My mom's family from Missouri stayed at my parents house.

We took family Christmas card pictures that I will share with you once they go out, but for the most part I only took Instagrams (and lots of pics of Embry with my nice camera). 

The life of a work from home sales dude 

(this is Jon on days where he doesn't travel...)

Mimi had a "sip and see" party for her friends to meet Embry...lots of chubby cheek cuddles

Welcome to suburbia folks!! We made homemade bread and delivered them to our neighbors on Wednesday

We ran the 5 mile Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning and I immediately regretted it. I am NOT a runner so I would switch off between running and walking every 5 minutes but around mile 2 my right knee was on fire. I continued jogging/walking and wow did it hurt for the next 2 days. I would love to walk the race next year but this girl will NOT be running ever again!

Our one "family picture" on Thanksgiving. And a few people asked where Ernie was...truth be told he was having the time of his life with his yellow lab cousin, Athena. Mimi and Papa's house is just too much fun for him at times!

The "Fanning" girls 

(mom, lil sis Tomi, Embry, me, big sis Cori)

Our sweet God daughter

Raise your hand if you like my jeggings?!

(I swear this girl is the most fashionable 8 week old I know!)

We spent the rest of the weekend decorating our massive 9.5 foot tree, we love it! Jon is going to conquer outdoor lights this week and I can't wait to show you. 

I plan on getting 99% of my Christmas shopping done today online, boy do I love Cyber Monday free shipping deals. Less than a month til Christmas folks! (and I have to add that the high in Austin today is 82 haha)

Our 4th Thurs-giving

Last Thursday, Jon and I celebrated our 4th Thursgiving. Thursgiving is a tradition we started the first Thanksgiving season we met and we are hoping to continue to celebrate it for many years to come. The Thursday before Thanksgiving we make our own mini Thanksgiving meal and reflect on the previous years blessings. We spend every holiday with my family and things can get crazy with that so we wanted to carve out time to talk about what we are thankful for and why, and what we are looking forward to the next year. We laugh because people go psycho and fuss over cooking a Thanksgiving meal but honestly, we do ours in less than an hour every year. Rotisserie turkey, boxed stuffing, instant rolls, etc. People it's not that hard! This allows us to focus on the meaning behind the celebration rather than stressing over what time to put the pumpkin pie in the oven. I posted about last year's Thursgiving here. 

So this year was extra special. We had company in town up until last Wednesday and are expecting company this evening so my mind was a little fried. I knew Thursgiving was right around the corner but didn't have the time to go to the store and prep everything. Jon sent me this text on his way home from Dallas on Thursday...

A fun treat to make up for a traveling husband is that he always brings home food when he returns. He's gotten good at surprising me with take out from different restaurants so I was trying to think where he was going. The week before he had brought home dinner from one of our first date places (Geno's in Round Rock...GO!) so I didn't have many guesses as to what this romantic like meal could be. And this is what he brought home...

I think I started tearing up when I saw it. Y'all...Jon hates going to the store...hates it with a passion...and this meant SO much to me that he took the time to think of all the sides, go to the store after being on the road al day, and he even cooked the whole thing! What a stud. 

The menu included turkey, gravy, cauliflower whippers, stuffing, green bean casserole, and crescent rolls. 

During dinner I was telling Jon I wished I had the ingredients for pumpkin pie and he slipped into the pantry to grab these mini pies! I am absolutely obsessed with homemade pumpkin pie and these were better than anything I've ever made (or tasted). I think the cream cheese frosting is what did it for me. 

November 1st we started our "Thankful Jar". Each day we wrote on frenchie shaped notecards (so Ernie could be somewhat included) something we are thankful for. We decided to go through them on Thursgiving, knowing that things would be crazy at our real Thanksgiving of 14 people. 

It was an awesome way to relax and catch up with my husband in between house guests and holidays...I am so glad (and lucky) he went all out! We talked about one day doing this with our children, our own little Hart family Thanksgiving.

Do you have any traditions beyond the normal Thanksgiving ones?

and yesterday I posted a few random things I am thankful for *here*