Thanksgiving

This week was Thanksgiving and Carter and I have so much to be thankful for that we could not even begin to name everyone or everything!  When I stop and think of all the blessings I have to be thankful for, I am truly overwhelmed!  I am so undeserving of His blessings, but yet He has chosen to give me more than I could ask or imagine! This year I am especially thankful for the amazing husband that God has given me and the wonderful new family that I got in turn!  As this holiday season begins it challenges me to think about what this season is truly about, giving thanks and glory to our Heavenly Father!

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:20

Now, to start where I left off last blog...

The Dawson Dragons played their playoff game against Sterling City on Nov. 18 (remember they were 2nd in the state last year).  They played in Grady, Texas which is literally in the middle of nowhere!  The game started off exciting as Sterling City would score and then the Dragons would turn right around and do the same!  I kept on yelling "Let's go Purple!" which is Dawson's school color, but I quickly realized that may not be appropriate for this particular game as both schools' color was purple!  : )  Although, the Dragons played an awesome game, they were unable to stop Sterling City and lost.   The Dragons played them to the 4th quarter though, which is saying something since Sterling City, after winning again this week, is going to the State Semi-finals.

We all thought that this would be Seth's last football game as a Dawson Dragon, but we were wrong!  The very next week we found out that Seth received some very big honors!  He was named All-District Offensive MVP and 1st Team All-Distric Cornerback.  He was also selected as one of the players that will play in the Texas All-Star Game in July 2012.  We are all very proud to say the least!

Now, I'm sure that you are all sitting on the edge of your seats in suspense waiting to find out what Carter's new "gadget" is that he bought while we were in Dallas...

 Snow Fox Kid's Snowmobile

Carter was so excited!  For those of you Texas folk, this will be for our kiddos to ride when their Dad and Grandpa go out riding when we are in Minnesota!  There is only one thing left to do for this to be useful, have a baby...lol!  Maybe in a couple of years!

As you all know, hospitals never close, so as a nurse we are required to work two holidays.  I chose Thanksgiving as one of my holidays as I feel that Thanksgiving is really whenever you can be with your family rather than a day.  And with Carter's job, he is on call pretty much 24/7 so if the phone rings, he goes!  Turned out that he also had to work on Thanksgiving.  We both were home for the evening and our good friends, Stephen and Anna, invited us to have left over Thanksgiving dinner with them and Anna's sister and her family.  Thanks to their family Carter and I DID get turkey and dressing on Thanksgiving!

After eating supper and searching through all the Black Friday ads, we all decided to join the madness and do some shopping ourselves!  We really had nothing big to buy, just a few "good" deals, so we set out on our adventure.  When I say adventure, I do mean adventure.  Carter and I had both been up since about 5:15ish Thusday morning, worked all day, went shopping at Wal-Mart where there was absolute CHAOS where we came out with a couple packages of undershirts for Carter and some DVD/Blue-rays, went to  Hastings for buy one get one free coffee, slept at Stephen and Anna's from 12:30-3:30 am, got up and went to JCPenny's, Sears, and Academy, and ended it all with breakfast burritos at Diegos at 6:30.  Whew...that seemed like a lot just typing it!  Needless to say, we were VERY tired yesterday!  We did get a few things we wanted and enjoyed making memories with Stephen and Anna!

Carter & I in Wal-Mart amongst the chaos

Anna with her pile of DVD/Blue-rays

Anna & I with all the stuff that we bought!  Excuse the looks, we hadn't gotten much sleep!

Yesterday (Friday) morning after our adventure came to a close, we headed home where we showered, packed, and hit the road to celebrate Thanksgiving with my parents and grandparents.  Last year we were fortunate to have the Brandt's come visit us here in Texas, and were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with them.  This year they were unable to make the trip, so we definitely missed seeing and celebrating with them...but we get to see them in only 4 1/2 short weeks!  Carter and I will be flying to Minnesota to visit them for Christmas!

We really had a great time hanging out with the family!  Carter and I took some time to take a quick nap before supper though.  Mom cooked a fantastic dinner and Carter fried our turkey again this year!  It was EXCELLENT!

Mom, she washed a ton of dishes, NO dishwasher

Injecting the turkey, getting it ready to be fried

All the guys cooking the turkey

Some of the fam

Our turkey, doesn't it look delicous!?

Micah was so excited smelling all the food!  She was scrounging around the kitchen in hopes that we dropped something!

And here are just a few extra pics of Malachi that I wanted to post!  The other day I had pulled all the laundry out of the dryer and placed it in the laundry basket to be folded. I took the basket and put it on Carter and I's bed.  I went to the kitchen to do something and came back a few minutes later to this...

He had nocked the basket full of clothes onto the floor, and decided to make the basket his bed.  The clothes were in a pile right next to the basket.  He's just so cute that you have to love him though!

And one day I left my drawer open just a little, and Mal just couldn't resist!

Well...I think I have covered it all!  Hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving and is counting their blessings as we are!