A House Full

Each morning when I look at the date on my calendar, I'm surprised again at how fast time is flying by!  How can it already be the end of November?  We've been busy here (like everybody else) with school, finishing up some fall activities, and the beginning of the holidays.  We dropped out of Scouts to add some breathing space to our lives, finished up the fall semester of co-op, and are just about done with the first term of our school year.  It feels good to have some space back in our weekly schedule!  Caiden starts basketball next week, so a little bit will be taken up again, but he's excited to try a new sport, and I'm just thankful it's inside!!

The last several weeks have been a storm of household management.  That sounds crazy and boring, but after cleaning out the junk drawer a while back and realizing how much I love order, I've been bitten by a decluttering/organizing/simplifying bug!  My mom has jumped on the train with me, like she generally does, which makes it much more fun.  We text each other photos of before and after, and she came to visit me last week and was genuinely interested in checking out my newly-decluttered cabinets and closets.  Moms are good for things like that!  Who else would care about my closets??

What I'm seeing is a house that's much easier to keep picked up, now that so much of our stuff has been sent to live with somebody else (Good riddance!), and a better chores/allowance system that has  helped greatly.  The kids are loving the idea of an allowance, and Addie is so pleased to be big enough to feed the cat and take care of her room and clothes that she usually has her chores finished first!  And now I have the time to do things I rarely ever did before, like cleaning the oven and scrubbing the bathroom floor in the guest house.  Before, I was always busy running around and picking up and cleaning--but somehow nothing ever felt cleaned or stayed picked up.  I can't believe how much easier it is to keep a house clean with less stuff and a better-defined schedule!  It's just in time for the holidays, when "more" feels so much more anyway!

My husband's parents are here for Thanksgiving.  Being a ministry family, we don't travel for holidays.  The holidays add so much to our schedule that when the actual day of the holiday comes, we don't want to do anything but stay in our pajamas and lounge around, recovering from all the extra church services.  So we decided after traveling for Christmas when Caiden was an infant, that we'd stay here and welcome anybody who wanted to visit.  (Except for Christmas, which we decided after a couple years of company that we needed that holiday to be just us.)  Chris' parents drive here from Tennessee each year, and it's the perfect time for them to visit.  Chris' mom is a wonderful cook, and we've come up with a pretty good system--she makes the traditional Southern dishes, like pecan pie, sweet potato casserole, and the cornbread dressing; I make the mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie,  etc.  Chris takes care of the turkey.  (Funny story:  last year when I found out Chris' dad doesn't eat pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving because it's a "Yankee" food, I was aghast.  Chris cracked us up when he reminded his dad that Thanksgiving is, after all, a traditionally-"Yankee" holiday.  So true!  But last night, when we reminded him of that story, his dad said "Yes, but we Southerners improved it!  That's why we now have sweet potato casserole and pecan pie!"  So funny!  As an aside--no offense meant by the term "Yankee."  Chris called my parents that for years because they lived in Pennsylvania, and when they told him that only East Coasters truly qualify as Yankees, he said that as a Southerner, anybody above the Mason-Dixon line in Kentucky is a Yankee!  Funny Southern boy!!)

This year will be especially fun, though, because my parents are going to drive over for dessert in the evening.  We've never shared a holiday with both sets of parents, and I am so excited!  Even more sweet is that it was Chris' idea to invite my parents, and I am touched that he offered to share the holiday with his in-laws! 

So today will be the traditional day-before cooking.  I love wearing my apron and working on tomorrow morning's cinnamon rolls and getting everything ready that can be done ahead of time.  I love setting the table beautifully for our meal, creating Thanksgiving "thankful" crafts with the kids, and everything else about Thanksgiving!  It's my favorite holiday, hands-down, and having mounds of mashed potatoes (That only Chris, Caiden and I will eat, leaving more for me!) only helps.  Chris camped with the kids in our back field last night, possibly starting a Thanksgiving tradition?, so I imagine I'll have some nappers this afternoon, making preparation even easier.  (As I write, my little campers are all snuggled up in their mummy sleeping bags on the family room floor, playing "Christmas-opoly" together.  My sweet in-laws gave the sleeping bags and game to them yesterday for their combined birthdays, and there's not much else that could have delighted Caiden more than a new Monopoly game!  He's like playing with Donald Trump; don't play with him unless you bring your A game!!)

I hope your Thanksgiving week is beautiful, filled with friends, family, and gratitude for what the Lord has given you this year.  I am so thankful to have family here with us, especially when earlier this year we didn't know if Chris' dad was going to survive a serious health scare.  My house is full of people I love, and I am so very thankful for what the Lord has given me!  Happy Thanksgiving to you!!