Today is our annual family Thanksgiving meal together!! We began a tradition years ago of having our own family Thanksgiving meal a few day before we set out to travel to family to celebrate with them. It began when I really wanted for my own children to have a taste for MY dressing...just like I love MY mom's dressing! Jay and I wanted to have our OWN Thanksgiving traditions without giving up all those of our families...we wanted BOTH!
So, a few years ago (I can't remember how many it has been...a bunch!) Jay and I found Paula Deen's southern dressing and we modify it to suit our taste. We get a Honeybaked Ham (we just buy it by the slice and for a pound it only costs us about $10 for our whole family to eat and have leftovers until we leave for our families homes) and I make lots of yummy sides!
Today is that day! I started some chopping and assembling this morning and things are pretty calm. The girls have really helped out making the broccoli and cheese casserole and part of the dressing too. We will have a corn casserole, rice, croissants, and for dessert I make Jay's MOST favorite pie...buttermilk. I know...I was a bit scared myself. But it is DELICIOUS!!!
The house smells amazing and we are all ready for our big family Thanksgiving dinner tonight. Then, having just enough leftovers for a few days...and THEN on to my family's home to eat some more! We can't wait!!
We pray that your Thanksgiving is amazing and that you take special time as a family to be thankful to our amazing Heavenly Father for all the bountiful blessings He alone has showered over each of our lives. Enjoy...
Since I shared yesterday about our night of Christmas lists...I wanted to share how we approach Christmas gifts. Since the girls have been born, we decided that we would give each girl 3 gifts for Christmas. We did this because we believed that since Jesus received 3 gifts in celebration of His birth and the fulfillment of the prophesies of the Old Testament. So...in our family...no one gets more gifts than Jesus!
No, we do give nice gifts (within our budget!)...but they only open 3 gifts. The girls just never have known anything different...so it's not strange or sad for them to only get 3 gifts. They do have their stockings and something for BOTH of them out to greet them when they come into the room.
We have never celebrated with Santa, so they totally understand why our family does things a little different. Actually...we do a LOT of things different around Christmas time. A few things have always been the same, and other things are new traditions.
I will share many of those things as we begin Advent in just a few weeks. I will share creative things my friends and family have done to make Christ the very CENTER of our celebrations. It will be so fun...and please feel free to leave a comment about the creative ways you approach gifts at Christmas. I look forward to hear and sharing them!
I mentioned in another post that I had emailed to ask if I should go ahead and do our traditional Thanksgiving cards or should we wait in hopes of including our newest little Worthington in them this year. I didn't hear back (um...I wasn't really thinking I would with that question!) for a while. BUT...today I did hear back and it seems that we will not be matched by Thanksgiving. They are thinking that we might not be matched by Christmas...BUT they said that was NOT definate. Did you see the glimmer of hope? Yeah, me too.
Soooo...you will NOT be getting Thanksgiving cards this year. We will most certainly wait until the very last moment in December to send out our cards just in case...maybe we'll send out New Year's cards...or how about Valentines Day???
Anyway, the birth certificate process is moving REALLY slow right now. I know of several families that have been waiting about a month or so for thiers and still don't have them. So, it probably won't be in 2009 but we'll just wait and see.
Just wanted to keep you updated on the adoption front...we're staying really busy with all kinds of Thanksgiving fun over here. We can't wait for our little one to join all this fun! Thanks for journeying with our family...
Every year we have one night before Thanksgiving that we declare it "legal" to talk about Christmas, to play Christmas music, and to make a list of gifts to ask for and to give. On Monday night we had our family night Christmas style. We got out all the magazines that I have been collecting and took sharpies in hand to make a list!
We made our favorite homemade hot chocolate and settled into our Christmas jammies to enjoy a taste of Christmas to come! I order most of our Christmas gifts online and don't do a whole lot of aimless shopping in December. Jay and I try to plan one night to shop for those things we can't get online and that's about it. We don't like Christmas stress at all.
We had such a nice night...and even managed to watch a Christmas movie too! 
Since we are in the middle of a study on Thanksgiving (as it is called now) and its history, we decided to make a replica of the Mayflower. We wanted to study what the merchant ship that the pilgrims spent several months on would have been like. We began with an old Orange Crush box Jay's family had left behind. We cut out one side so that we could make all the rooms inside.
Then, we took 2 Little Caesar's boxes and made the floors and rooms inside the ship. We also places a railing on the top along with the "poop deck" which does NOT have anything to do with poop...though there were many laughs every time we said it!
After we covered the ship with brown paper, the girls got to work on making all the "accessories" for each room. We have been reading lots of books and watching movies on the history of Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims for the past 2 weeks. We had one particular book called "Three young Pilgrims" that had the complete diagram for us to work from to make our replica.
Here is our finished ship! We even attached real rope (hemp) to the sails (tissue) and painted some cotton balls to make swells from the sea come up around the boat. It took us a few hours to finish it...but we learned SO much and had a WONDERFUL time together!! I have some amazingly talented girls!
Here is a close up of the entire ship's interior. Each of the girls can give a guided tour of EVERY single room and what it was used for in that time. They know how the ship was guided, what a whipstaff and a tiller are, where the captain stayed, what the poop deck was, and all kinds of other history about this trip.
OK...is this not the cutest thing EVER??? I LOVE that the little women on the bottom floor is holding on to the wall...since there were lots of storms and they were in the bottom of the boat very seasick! The dog isn't doing very well either it seems! Every little detail the girls did themselves. I only helped with the construction and the sails. That's it!
Virginia did a wonderful job on all the barrels of food and water, the cannon (held up with a toothpick!), and the capstan (which is what they hoisted the cargo up with). I took some video of them giving me a tour of the ship...it's so precious! I'll have to post that another day.
They did a wonderful job! After they finished they played "Pilgrims" for about an hour. They even made the "New World" complete with Squanto and the first feast with the Wampanoag Indians. Man, I love homeschool! I'm learning SO much!!!
Many of you have sweetly prayed and asked how our adoption is going and if we have any idea when we are going to be matched with a referral (child). I do have a little update to share that we received a few weeks ago...but I had forgotten to update.
Due to new requirements about exit health exams, birth certificates, and a few other details...Amani has decided very wisely to get everything that they can get finished and finalized before they match families with their little ones. It's a WONDERFUL idea to us!
So, at this time there are little ones for the 6 waiting families already at the baby cottage. They are undergoing doctor visits, x-rays, paper work for their birth certificates, and getting several different forms finalized. THEN...we will get that call!
This is wonderful news, we feel. They desire for us to not wait as long with that photo and name in our minds. It's just so much harder that way they are finding...and I KNOW it would be harder for me. We are so grateful for how Amani is handling this and we will GLADLY wait as long as the Lord decides.
Have I emailed and wondered if I should go ahead and get those Thanksgiving cards ordered and sent out? Yes. We do Thanksgiving cards in order to forgo all the chaos in December...and we just LOVE Thanksgiving too! But, there is no way to know if that match will come through before cards go out...even though we may just wait until the very last moment and see if it happens in December!
So, we are so grateful to the Lord that these things are happening...but of course we are excited and desire to get that call any day! But, we all have such peace and are ENJOYING every single day as it is the one the Lord has made. We are rejoicing in it! I don't want to look back and have gotten so focused on the goal that I miss the journey along the way. We know He is preparing us all...including our little one! His timing is absolutely AWESOME!
The only other thing that we know is that Amani is no longer accepting applications for adoption right now. They are going to take time right now to focus on the families they have going through the process...and there are not any babies that are eligible for adoption either!
They have had SO MANY people contact them for adoption...that they don't have enough babies...PRAISE GOD!!!!!!!!
Thanks for your continued prayers and love and support!
On Tuesday I attented the Ministers' Wives Dinner at the Georgia Baptist Convention. We had a wonderful time and lots of yummy food and fantastic fellowship! This is one of my favorite things to do all year. We laughed so hard!! I have to say that this ministers' wives dinner was unlike anything I have ever been to before.
Janet Hunt (Pastor Johnny Hunt's wife) was our speaker and she did a dinner theatre. It was hysterical! I also now have the honor of being the president this year...along with my former roomate in college Amy as the Vice President and one of my very favorite friends as the secretary. We are going to have a blast! We can't wait to serve the wives of Georgia this year!!
Here is just a little taste of the craziness that went on that night...we are one bunch of fun ladies!
The past few days have been...CRAZY! I have had the Georgia Baptist Convention, a speaking engagement, an entire day of photo sessions on Saturday (from 10am until 4pm with only a 30 minute break!) and ended yesterday with being at church until 3pm and then having a WONDERFUL Village party to support the refugees in Clarkston, Georgia! All in all...it was a great week and weekend...but all the while my body has tried its best to fight off a cold.
So, I haven't gotten the chance to blog for the week. I'll do my best to get caught up...but I am taking it easy today in order to try to fight this thing off. I lost my voice last night at the party and haven't really found it!
One thing I am really excited about is the fact that we are taking a neat detour (not really) in school until after Christmas. Because we are studying geography this year, we are taking it into a study on Thanksgiving and Advent.
We have really gotten lots of books and curriculum on the history of the first Thanksgiving. We are going to take the next 2 weeks to study as much as possible about the geography and history of this holiday and separate the myths from the facts. We found awesome movies (one for Jay and myself too!) and lots of great books. We even found one that would teach the girls how to draw Thanksgiving symbols! They love it!!
After Thanksgiving we will be turning our study to a 25 day unit study on Advent and Christmas. We will travel to all kinds of countries to learn about Christmas celebrations and learn about art, music, and traditions of Christmas and where they came from...and what they mean.
We will be keeping up with the other subjects too...but our main focus will be to learn as much as we can about these two holidays and see Christ in every single part! I can't wait! We did some of this last year, but with all the other work we had to accomplish it was hard to have specific time to devote to them.
I am so overjoyed with our new curriculum and the new way we are approaching school this year! The girls are learning so much and they are just thriving! Their hearts are more and more drawn to Christ, His Word, and serving others. What a blessing for me to enjoy the blessings God has given to me every single day! What a JOY!
If you are interested in a unit study on Advent you can check out this advent calendar here:
http://www.teachingmom.com/features/advent.html
It is a LOT of information...but it's wonderful! I used it last year and even though the calendar is from 2008 I find all the information timeless. You can use it every year if you like!
Now, those of you who know me understand that LOVE strategies. I'm constantly...like every day...praying for God to show me ways to disciple my girls. Each morning as I pray for them, I ask God to help me teach, love, guide, and disciple them like He would. He's their Daddy...and I sure do want to please Him:)
Then, on Saturday morning we headed to Auburn for our annual trip to the homecoming game! We had so much fun and had a few extra fun things planned for the day that made it extra special!
Daddy gave Virginia a bird's eye view of all the fun! Thanks Dad!
We were so excited that my mom and my aunts were there at the game. We got to meet with them and tailgate a little. Then, we headed to our seats where we all got to sit together! It was so much fun! This was my mom and aunts' first Auburn football game. It was wonderful!
Our war eagle family...love them!
Sassy and the girls enjoy the pre-game show!
We got there in time to see the eagle fly...that's just about the BEST part!
Mom and her sisters surviving and loving their first Auburn game.
After the game we headed over to my cousin's sorrority house and enjoyed a FREE and YUMMY bar-b-que dinner. It was so fun to get to hang out with her and also to spend some extra time with my family.
Before we knew it, the time had flown and it was time to get home. We had yet another wonderful Homecoming. Our family has been to every Homecoming since Virginia was born...that's 8 years in a ROW! We love Auburn!
Bye until next Homcoming! War Eagle...
Today we headed out early for the Marietta annual Veteran's Day celebration on the Square. The morning started out rainy, but by the time we got there and sat down in our place it had stopped and we had a wonderful time!
We had a wonderful time learning about the beginnings of Veteran's (or Armistic Day) and all the branches of the armed forces. There weren't nearly as many people as I had thought so we had a great view!
The tanks and artillery vehicles were really cool! The girls loved waving to everyone...and having them wave back.
This was a great parade!
There were about 5-6 high school bands, flag corps, and ROTC groups. The music was wonderfully patriotic!
There was a moment of silence for all of us as these men who held flags representing the MIA and POWs. It almost brought tears to my eyes.
More HUGE military vehicles...so cool!
This was all of our favorites! This float was a replica...made from real people. They were so still that it was almost as if they were the statues.
The Coast Guard had this really fun boat and life vests for their float. Virginia waves the entire time to everyone!
What a great day!
Afterward, we all headed over the park for a program. We didn't stay very long because we were headed to have lunch with Daddy!
We met daddy at a wonderful fish market for a terrific lunch together! What a cute lighthouse in the restaurant. We ate SO much!
