Blessed for Thanksgiving

Play Doh Time

I'm sitting here alone in our quiet house-too tired to get up off the couch and crawl into bed-and I keep thinking about all the things to be thankful for right now.  Maybe it's the holiday spirit getting the best of me.  Or maybe I'm just seeing all the blessings we have.  But right now, life is pretty good and I'm so very grateful for that.  We're mostly settled into our new home.  We've been here less than a month and have had at least one house guest the entire time we've lived here.  I'm not complaining about that in the least.  I'm just noticing the quiet a bit more tonight since there aren't any extra bodies around.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my side of the family.  We welcomed my parents and their dog Skye as well as my brother and his family into our new home. All in all there were 6 adults, 5 children, and 3 dogs here.  We had a full house, but it was so much fun to have them all here.  My nephew Derick and Rowan had so much fun together.  Rowan especially enjoyed playing with Derick's Thomas toys and playing with Play-doh.  After Derick left, Rowan asked to "Play play-doh Derick again".  They became fast friends and it was fun to see them play and interact.

Anna, Alex, and Killean-the 2014 babies

Rowan also bonded with my dad's dog Skye.  He got a kick out of playing with her.  His favorite game: throwing the ball down the stairs and waiting for Skye to bring it back up again.  A close second on his list of favorites was feeding Skye.  I'm not quite sure why feeding a dog is so much fun, but it was.  So he helped feed Skye her breakfast and dinner every day.  It's the little things I guess...

In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I got to spend some time with my dad butchering an elk.  No-that's not a euphemism.  That's what we actually did.  My dad went elk hunting before coming down here, and he got a BIG cow on the second day of hunting.  You could tell he loved telling the story of seeing so many elk during the trip and the adventure he had with my uncle getting their animals into their vehicles.  Sitting in my new garage with my dad brought back lots of memories of my youth when we spent countless hours on weekends processing the game we hunted.  Helped make my new house feel more like home instantly.

All 5 MacLeod Cousins

Our Thanksgiving meal was supposed to be simple. We thought we had a simple menu...and then I listed out all that we were cooking and Ian reminded me that we did not have a simple menu.  All the food was delicious.  We discovered some quirks about my new kitchen in the process, but everything was perfect-quirks and all.

But no matter how much fun the kids had playing, or how good the food was, the best part of Thanksgiving this year was having everyone at my house.  There's just something about having your family around you that makes a house feel like a home.  It's not often we all get to be in the same location, but for about 36 hours all 11 people in the MacLeod family were under one roof.  We laughed, talked, chased children, and enjoyed each other's company.  It was a wonderful holiday and I'm so very, very thankful we got to have that time together.