Snow Thankful

I've been studying the last month about thankfulness.  What I've realized so far is that I'm just scratching the surface.  What seems like such a simple, obvious concept has layers of meaning and purpose that I think I've underestimated for far too long.  I'm grateful for the Thanksgiving holiday that brings the focus back every year, but I also know that I can't let my study pass just because we're now in December - there's way too much I still haven't wrapped my brain around!

For Thanksgiving day we had the pleasure of visiting at my Aunt Deanna's house.  Aubree, my tradition officer, reminded me that I had to make rolls and fudge.  The fudge flopped (no big deal that we have to eat it with a spoon, right?), but at least the rolls turned out.  I do sometimes wonder how many my kids end of eating once it's time for dinner though...

Lovely Aunt Deanna

There are always lots of people at holidays with the Hoyt's.  When we pulled in around 2pm, Graham had just woken up from a short, uncomfortable car nap.  Walking into the whirlwind of faces and noise was a little overwhelming for him.  He sat in a daze on the rocking horse for the first half hour, before shaking off the short-nap-haze and becoming his normal happy self.  

Aubree, Bryce, and Thane dealt with the noise and the crowds by sticking around the appetizer/munchies table.  Chips, cookies, shrimp, crackers ... all beckoning to their taste buds.  They later joined their cousins watching 'How to Train Your Dragon 2'. Dinner was great, the company was even better.  

We'd hit a lot of traffic heading up, and worried it might be even worse on the drive home.  Unintentionally, however, we left during the Seahawks football game.  I've never been fonder of Seahawks fans - there was no one on the roads!  Clear sailing all the way home.  

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The Saturday after Thanksgiving we woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground.  By 9am, it began to snow harder and soon we had just enough snow in which to play.  After the overwhelming, laborious task of pulling out and putting on snow gear for four kids, I was super grateful we lived in a place where it only snows a couple times a year.  How do people in snow-lands do this regularly?!?

Once we were outside, it was all worth it.  I made the kids stand together for an outside picture before I let them run off to play.  Graham is grumpy because he kept falling down and hadn't yet figured out how to stand back up on his own.  

Bryce stayed outside the longest.  He played around for a little bit, then met up with his buddy Asher and together they decided to make a snow fort.  Though they didn't have much snow with which to work, they diligently persisted.  

Thane liked tasting the snow.  He also really enjoyed making and throwing snowballs and trying to jump into the antics of the bigger kids.  

Once he figured out how to maintain his balance and get up after falling, Graham loved being outside.  Not long after we got outside, he got his mittens wet.  I quickly grabbed him some extra gloves, but they were too big.  They fell off pretty regularly, which turned into a game of him laughing, pulling off the second glove, and running over to sit down on the steps for me to put them back on.  

Aubree and some of the bigger neighborhood kids had a drawn-out snowball fight.  They were disappointed there wasn't enough snow for sledding.  

Perfect time for a snow day!