Many blessings & Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a very enjoyable, relaxing and memorable Thanksgiving! We sure did!!! This might get a little lengthy, so I apologize in advance. I’ve got a lot to share & I hope you’ll bear with me.

First, I’d like to say that I’m working on a new routine & blog schedule for the new year. I hope to be able to write more in advance & have a purpose for my posts. I’m finalizing a schedule now & will post it as soon as I’m satisfied with it!

Second, I must apologize for not keeping up with my writings here. Life has been more than crazy around here. My FIL was diagnosed with prostate cancer in October & had surgery the week before Thanksgiving. Praise the LORD they were able to remove the muscle & get the few spots of cancer. It was not in the exterior wall, which means it has NOT spread!! God is GREAT and MERCIFUL!!! The week before his surgery, I had wrist surgery & therefore was unable to write or type for nearly two weeks. It was even difficult to get homeschooling done, but we did it! WHEW!! But, like I mentioned earlier, I have a plan in the works & hope with a more focused goal and vision for my blog that I will be able to keep up with regular posts!

Third, I would like to say that God has once again BLESSED us beyond belief!! We have been without an oven for several months now. The cook-top still worked (thank heavens!), but the heating element had gone out in our “FREE” oven. We didn’t really have the money to pay someone to come look at it & verify that was what it was, so we just prayed about getting a new one. About 4 weeks ago there was a knock at the door & a strange man was standing on my porch. I had never seen him before, but since my hubster was home I thought it was okay to answer. So, I answered the door and here’s how the short convo went:

Me: “Hello.”

Man: “Are you Mrs. so and so?”

Me: “Yes.”

Man: “I was instructed to give this to you in order to bless you and your family.” (hands me an envelope)

Me: “Really? Oh my. Thank you so VERY much!” (I probably sounded like a dork, but I was so shocked that I had no idea what to say.)

Man: “Yes. My wife and I just wanted to bless you all. Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!” (turns around and walks back to his van & drives off)

Still in shock, I take the envelope back in the house & hand it to my hubster. He slowly opens the envelope (as he is now in shock as well) and starts counting, 1, 2, 3…4…$100 bills!!!! OH. MY. WORD!!!! We for sure thought this was the answer to our prayers and that we would use this money to purchase a new oven. But, we decided it best to pray about how to use this money. So, we did. For weeks!! And, pretty soon it became apparent that our van needed some work. We took it in the week before Thanksgiving & found that it needed about $650 worth of work. (This coming shortly after we just spent $375 fixing something else on it.) UGH!! However, the hubster reminded me that God had already provided the money for this!! What a BLESSING!!!! But, the fact still remained that we had no oven! In fact, we didn’t have one last winter either. (It was the original one in the house & went out. Then, I found one on our local Freecycle chapter & that’s the one that recently went out.) I kept praying, but I just knew I couldn’t go another winter without an oven!! I took up really cooking for our family about a year and a half ago & I have come to really enjoy & LOVE it!! Plus, my kids were not doing well with the fried nuggets & fishsticks. (They get soggy in the microwave & they won’t eat them, so the only way they will eat them is either baked or fried.) Anyway…it was looking rather bleak for a new oven after all these unexpected expenses. However, once again GOD IS GREAT!!! We were provided a BRANDNEW range the day before Thanksgiving!! I was able to finish all my cooking for our big family event in my OWN HOME!!!! What a blessing and JOY that was! (Especially since we went to bed at1:30am!) We broke it in well too!

Fourth, brings me to the “real” reason I’m posting today. THANKSGIVING!!! Our family was blessed to join my Dad’s family & some ‘extended family’ (for lack of a lengthy explanation) at my Aunt & Uncle’s church on Thanksgiving day. I baked long and hard for the event. I was making 3 desserts (I just couldn’t decide on one), 2 batches of PW rolls (about 72 in all), 2 green bean casseroles – the “original” one and Pioneer Woman’s (I made them for my parents since they were both working all week) and my husband made a small turkey so we could make the dressing to take with us to our BIG family gathering! WOW!!!! We were busy! But, what FUN we had! Here are some pictures from the event for you to enjoy!

Air hockey is VERY popular with the kiddos!

This is the why I'm glad we DON'T have stairs in our house! My son thought this was just the BEST!!! However, I'm pretty sure if we had stairs there would be MANY boo-boo's!!

My daughter enjoying a riding toy!

I was able to see a couple of my cousins for the first time in 2 years!!! Our kids had plenty of room to roam and have fun without getting in everyone’s way. It was a wonderful day all the way around! The drive home was especially peaceful as all 4 kids slept and the hubster did too! Lots of time for just me and the LORD!!!! I am truly blessed!

If you stuck around to the end here, be sure to watch for my next post where I’ll review the new recipes we tried on Thanksgiving! I've already started working on it, so I hope to post it tomorrow!!