Happy Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving! It ranks as one of my favorite holidays (Christmas is still number 1). Even though I am not American I have come to love this holiday and truly look forward to it every year and was excited about sharing it with my daughter for the first time. I love starting the day off with the Macy's day parade, followed with great time with family, great food (I love stuffing, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie) and kicking off the holiday season. I also love that we have a whole day that is devoted to reflecting on your blessings and being thankful. As I reflect, I am in awe of how blessed we are. 

Here are some of the things that I am thankful for this year:

1. This year I have been blessed to become a mom, something that I have always wanted to do in life and how blessed are we to have our precious healthy  little girl. Doesn't see look adorable in her little Thanksgiving outfit...thanks to the Sherman's for their gift! And as always you can find more pictures of Peyton by clicking on the links in the picture section or you can click here.
2. I am thankful for my husband and my marriage.
3. I am also thankful that my family now lives in the same state as me! This is the first time in I believe 5 years that I have seen my family on Thanksgiving.

Also, when we were going around the table verbalizing what we are thankful for, my mom's words really touched me. She mentioned that she was thankful that we were born in North America and live in a country where we have the freedom to worship, freedom to gather, freedom to live without the fear of terrorist attacks and are blessed to have a meal like we do. So many people in the world do not have enough to eat and here we are with so much. 

So, a recap on the day. We had people over to our house for our first time hosting Thanksgiving. This gave me a reason to have some fun in being creative in setting the table which is so much fun!

We had John's brothers (Shawn and Ron), John's mom (Martha), my mom, and my sister Ashley in attendance (my 

other sister, Shannon was visiting my dad so my family was really complete...maybe next year). We had tons of food with all of the Thanksgiving staples and I am happy to report that it was all edible. I wasn't too nervous about preparing the meal but it is always a relief when everything goes well. We ended the meal with with birthday cake as we were not only celebrating Thanksgiving but Martha's 60th Birthday. What a great day! I got a cake made by the Cake Lady Bakery in Friendswood. If you ever need a special cake for any occasion, I highly recommend them. It was reasonably priced, delicious and really nicely decorated! 

We finished the evening off with some Trivial Pursuit which is an Acord tradition but this year we made sure to purchase the more updated version which allowed us to have more involvement and actually not feel like an idiot. Peyton however was getting pretty bored and was not really into the whole game as you can see....

Finally we wrapped things up and watched the Texas vs A&M Game and a wonderful Texas win! A great day and a great first Thanksgiving for Peyton. Tomorrow we start the Christmas holiday season and will start with introducing Peyton to a family tradition of reading the Christmas story and setting up the manager first before all other decorations. I am so excited for Peyton's first holiday season and the many memories that we will be making!