So much to be thankful for...

This year is a bit tighter than other years financially because of the economy and how it's affected our business but we still have so much to be thankful for. We have wonderful and healthy kids (except for the occasional cold or ear infection), we have so much fun together as a family, we have great friends and we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives that makes all the difference. We are indeed thankful everyday for the blessings we have.

I am thankful for Rich. He never fails to make me laugh everyday, and he cooks! What more could I ask for? He made most of the Thanksgiving dinner this year. He is a Food Network junkie. He loves Alton, Paula, etc and so on. He cooked two turkeys this year. The first was Alton Brown's recipe which went to the community center for the dinner for less fortunate individuals. The turkey he cooked for our meal was from Tyler Florence. It was a Maple Bacon Turkey and it was so delicious!

(mmmmmm...)

He rubbed sage butter under the skin, covered it with bacon, and basted it every half hour with maple syrup. It was juicy and sweet!

We had all of the rest of the trimmings...garlic parmesan mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, stuffing, cranberries, olives, rolls and apple & yam casserole. It was just our family and Janet. A small gathering but that means more left overs!

(they're all thinking..take the picture already, we're hungry!)

We ate about 1:30 and let the food settle a bit while everyone played games. About 4:00 we drove down to Riverside to visit with my side of the family at my Grandparent's house.

(my beautiful cousin Rachel)

My cousin Rachel was busy helping my Aunt Jody cook their dinner while we visited with everyone else. Jeremy and Gage got to hang out with their cousins, which they love to do, and we had a fun time just sitting around visiting with everyone. Holidays are always a bit more special with Grandpa and Grandma because we don't know how many more we have with them. That is another thing I'm grateful for, that we live close enough to visit them often so my kids will remember their Great Grandparents like I remember mine. Grandpa has given up shaving, which I guess he can do at 88, so he's looking very Santa Claus-ish.

(Grandpa & Grandma Goodwin and Julia)

We stayed until late because we always hate to leave. It's such a blessing to have family!

(The 4 generations of girls...Mom, Ally, Grandma, and Me!)

Julia and Guster

We got a puppy last week! We named him Guster, after Burton Guster from Psych (one of the our favorite tv shows). Mostly we call him Gus. He's a Lab mix and is very snuggly and is coming along on the house breaking. Right now the biggest problem is that he nips at the kids a lot. I know all puppies do that and they aren't being mean. He seems to like to chew on Julia the most although he has many chew toys she's his favorite.

This morning when the girls got up early they went down to watch tv before getting ready for school. I came down and found Julia watching tv while sitting in the dog's kennel that he sleeps in. Smart girl.

That way Gus can't nip at her when she wants to watch tv!