Happy Thanksgiving!

If you know the story of Thanksgiving, it is obvious that it is not celebrated in the UK. Everyone still goes to work as usual and there is no Black Friday shopping. That is the most disappointing thing for me! I am really missing my mom right now as she is off to Peoria to fight the crowds and find the deals. For the past couple of years, I have been asked to come to school and talk to the boys' classes about the holiday and what we do to celebrate. Last year, I found this great book (thanks Ahdonna!) that very simply tells the story about the Pilgrims leaving England to find a new land, the Native Americans helping them with their crops and then celebrating the harvest. Each year, I bring in some kind of treat for the kids. This year, I decided to make turkey sugar cookies. I needed about 70 of them for school and then made another 50 for our Thanksgiving celebration last Sunday. Max and Blake both did great helping with different parts of the baking...although it took twice as long. Blake got a little tired of the cutting out part but enjoyed helping to mix the ingredients. Max loved to cut out the turkeys and help decorate. Thanks Tina for giving me your wonderful recipe and tips that made this chore not so overwhelming...although I won't be doing again anytime soon.

This was only half of them! The kids and teachers loved them and are already looking forward to next year. I'm hoping that we are back in the states by then so I don't have to come up with another idea! They did take a few pictures of the day so hopefully they'll send me a couple.

Last Sunday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with 130 other "family" members. We are all in England with Caterpillar for a few years and always have a Thanksgiving and 4th of July get together. It really is a wonderful time and I'm so thankful that we have people that volunteer to organize these events. Thanks Pam and Miranda! And also thanks to Laurie for organizing the picture. It wasn't an easy task! If you click on it and make it bigger, you will notice that one of our family members was not there. Dan was home sick and was truly missed!

For Thanksgiving day, I decided to fix a turkey and invite a few friends over to help celebrate. Unfortunately, some of them that were planning to come were sick or traveling and couldn't make it. We had so much turkey left over but it turned out great.

We are really missing our family and friends in the states this time of year but are thankful that we have made some wonderful friends here. We have so much to be thankful for and feel truly blessed for all that we have been given. The boys were able to tell Austin, David and Kara, "Happy Thanksgiving and We love you" before heading to bed very late! We can't wait to be back home to celebrate with you again! I can actually cook the turkey now!