Thankful

We have so much to be thankful for this year (and every year)!  The year ahead looks to be an exciting one full of new things and changes.  And while change is something I am not necessarily a huge fan of, it is still something we are thankful for.  With things changing here in the near future, this weekend was a good time for us to pause and reflect on how good God has been to us this past year, and how we know that He will be with us, guide us, and provide for us in the coming year.

We just returned home from a wonderful weekend in Wisconsin with my side of the family.  And because we try to switch off holidays with our families, we also squeezed in Christmas this weekend, too!  So it kinda feels like it should be New Year's Day already.  But J is excited that there is more Christmas to come in a few weeks!

We left after school on Tuesday and arrived very late Tuesday night, about 11:30 pm.  Our non-car sleeper was wide awake and just giddy to be at Grandpa and Grandma Wiers' house!  It took him awhile to get settled down, but thankfully he did eventually go to sleep and he (and we) slept in until about 8:45 the next morning.

On Wednesday we decided to check out the Jelly Belly warehouse tour in Pleasant Prairie (about 45 min from my parents' house).  Jeremiah was excited because there was a train and also jelly beans involved. :)

In the candy store after the tour-- J would live here if he could!

J had no problem helping Grandma fill up some bags of candy to buy. :)

Wednesday night my mom began preparations for Thanksgiving dinner, and that, of course, meant making pie!  My mom is quite the pie maker, and no I did not inherit this trait in case you were wondering (much to Adam's dismay).  And making pie means pie crust cookies with the extra dough-- YUM!!!!!!!!!!

J "helped" with rolling out the dough.

Thanksgiving morning we headed off to church, and my parents' church had a really great service for Thanksgiving.  It involved people writing down what they are thankful for on leaf sticky papers and adding them to the trees at the front of the church.  We even participated, and J said he was thankful for "mommy and daddy."

J spent some time playing outside in Grandpa and Grandma's snow-- I think they even had more than we had in Iowa, and Jeremiah was very excited!

He worked hard to shovel their grass.

For Thanksgiving dinner we had my parents, us, Abby & Neil, Ben, and my cousin Karen and her husband Juan drove up from Chicago for the day to join us, too.

A blessing to share Thanksgiving dinner with all of these people!

We spent the rest of the day relaxing, talking, cleaning up, and playing games.  It was a wonderful day!

Serious game players.

Friday, known as Black Friday to most, was actually our "Christmas Eve."  So, as is our tradition, we went out for a nice lunch-- this time we chose Parkside 23, and it did not disappoint.  We all went home very full!

 In the evening, as is our tradition, we had a dinner of appetizers and then opened presents.

The spread.

This guy could hardly contain his excitement about opening presents!!!!

Because J was begging and begging to open the big gift under the tree that said "Jeremiah" on it, we let him do that one first.  He is a really good gift opener, and I think his excitement is contagious!  HERE is the video of him opening his first present.  Needless to say, he likes it. :)

We also did FaceTime with Matt, Cheryl, Josie, and Evan in California so we could share the present-opening fun with each other. 

Hi Josie and Evan!

The evening got better and better for Jeremiah!

Building his plane from Uncle Matt, Aunt Cheryl, Josie, and Evan!

Playing "Rivers, Roads, & Rails" which was from Auntie Abby and (soon-to-be

) Uncle Neil

Oh, and the rest of us opened some presents, too.  But it's a lot more fun to watch a child, especially Jeremiah, open presents. :)  HERE is a video of J opening his last present-- I dare you not to smile and join in Jeremiah's excitement! (The back story is that I had asked J what he was going to ask Santa for for Christmas-- he said "an army tank with tracks and not wheels."  He never mentioned this to me at all before, so I was kind of surprised!  So I texted my mom and let her know about this, and lo and behold, there was an army tank under the Christmas tree!).  And no, J has not put it together yet that he hasn't seen Santa yet, but he already got an army tank....

So Saturday was our "Christmas Day."  That means butterhorns for breakfast and opening stockings (or "sockies" as J calls them)!

More army vehicles!

Later that day, Abby, Neil, my mom, and I headed out to Cedarburg for shopping and lunch at the Creme & Crepe!  I love that place!!!!!!!  We of course had to make a stop at Amy's for chocolate and caramel apples!

Can you just smell them????

Love this little town and all the shops!

And FYI, that cute couple walking down the sidewalk is my sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law. :)

While Mommy was away, J was busy having fun with Daddy!  They played outside and even built a snowman!

I think they had to shovel the whole yard to get enough snow for that little snowman. :)  It was a really nice day, and the snow was quickly melting!

Saturday night we had pizza at Uncle Lew and Aunt JoAnne's house, and it was so nice to see them!  Jeremiah surprised us by remembering exactly which of Uncle Lew's toys he played with when we visited there last year. :)

We hit the road this morning about 9 am and arrived home by 3:30 pm.  Would have been home sooner, but we got held up by an accident in I-80.  Why does it seem like that ALWAYS happens?

Anyway, it is good to be home, but it was a great weekend and we're sad it is over, too.  Tomorrow it is back to work, and it is Adam's last week at Heartland Co-op.  And then things start changing...... yikes!  Here we go!