Two Days of Thanksgiving

I've been trying to work in the time to post, but it's been challenging! We actually celebrated our Thanksgiving yesterday, Wednesday, so that we would be free to serve at our church's Thanksgiving banquet given for the local homeless population today. Yesterday, we had a wonderful meal with family and church friends. I then got up this morning and cooked a few items for the banquet held at our church. As usual, there was more help than needed, but I think it's good for my kids to serve others during the holidays. Little Tori was so precious. On her own, she walked around to the different tables, took drink orders and delivered their sodas to them.

Elijah had quite the scare. There was a big man that really liked him. After the meal, I was standing out front letting Elijah play with the parking lot rocks. This man came up and grabbed Elijah, just playing with him. Elijah had a terrified look in his eyes, since he barely goes to people he knows, much less strangers. I took him back, telling the man that he's kind of shy. Once he was safe in my arms again, he smiled at the man, put his hand on his chest and said, "me kind of shy."

He isn't shy, however, when it comes to his sisters and their friends.

After the dinner, they had raffle gift certificates for different stores. They let James, Ben, Tori and Julia take turns drawing the winner.

This last picture is for Elijah's Aunt Marilyn. Elijah is wearing the ONLY thing I saved from Gabriel's baby days. This Steelers sweatshirt was an Aunt Marilyn gift to Gabriel his first year of life. It now fits Elijah perfectly. I wanted to be sure that Aunt Marilyn knew she really got her money's worth from this gift, since it's still around 19 years later. While I was taking the picture of Elijah in the sweat-shirt, he kindly demonstrated how he can do wheelies on his tractor.

Occasionally falling off the back -

But doing it over again.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have so, so much to be thankful for living in this country. We are preparing tonight for a black Friday run; the deals are just too good to pass up!
There are $10 crockpots and $4 pajamas calling my name!