Happy Thanksgiving....

from our pilgrim and indian to yours!

p.s. Honestly, Elliott had a GREAT time at his Thanksgiving Feast - for some reason he wanted to act "too cool for the camera" when I wanted to get a picture. Boys!

Singing at church

Ethan's preschool sang "If I Were a Butterfly..." today during the 11:00 worship time. They were so so cute. Of course Ethan displayed his signature smirk with the eye rolling a few times to let us know that he was proud of himself and embarrassed at the same time. (Sorry about the video quality - should've had it zoomed the entire clip, but it was a last minute thought)

Wise Decisions

I was listening to my podcast of Northpoint Ministries this morning at the gym (thank goodness for that little iPod!) and the topic was "The Best Question Ever" and talked about how we struggle with making the right decisions all the time and knowing what God wants for us. It was the first in the 6 part series so I think it even just skimmed the surface today. But at the end Andy Stanley pointed us to this verse:

"He who trusts in his own heart is a fool. But he who walks wisely will be delivered." (Proverbs 28:26)

I keep a little book of favorite verses and this is going in there. Highly recommend listening to that podcast!!

A Turkey for You

This may be my favorite turkey of all time! Ethan's teacher, Ms. Wendy, helped the kids make these last week and it's just so cute...EAT HAM! Of course, since Ethan is in his "fatherly" phase, he tried to take his "chicken" out to eat with him the other night, so I had to rescue him and he's now sitting on our bar as content as can be....maybe we will just EAT HAM this Thanksgiving!

A New Layout

This is mainly for my scrapbooking friends....I've been wanting to post some scrapbook layouts on here, so here's the first one. It was from a Becky Higgins sketch (of course) and I couldn't tell you where I got the idea. Just some highlights of some of my favorite things last November. Thanks for inspiring me to do a layout this weekend, Nyla!!

Happy Veteran's Day

I realize we're a day late with this, but I still wanted to do it. Elliott was talking about an assembly they had at his school for "St. Vetrick's Day" the other day and he said there were lots of grandfathers there. I asked if they were veterans and he said no - only two of them cause they had their uniforms on. I realized that even though they had talked about Veteran's Day at school that he still didn't understand that there are thousands of plain-clothed veterans that we probably see everyday. So I explained that Grandpa and PaPa were veterans too, and they were pretty intrigued by this. We tried to think of others and of course my Grandpa Hosselton came to mind, but they never got to meet him, so they kept referring to Grandma Hosselton as a veteran - I do consider her a veteran of the war (and all other war wives) since she had to sacrifice so much also.

Anyway, they decided to make cards for Grandpa and PaPa and I decided to dedicate a blog entry to them. I'm lucky enough to have my sister's wonderful wonderful family history scrapbooks here at my house right now (these aren't just pictures of our ancestors, but treasured family stories and memories that she took the time and effort to make sure are written down for us to pass on - thank you Erin!!!). So I have this photo of my Grandpa, Gill Hosselton, around 1942 in the Navy and also of my dad, John Hosselton, around 1967 in the Army. I wish I had a picture of Brian's dad, John Weiler, who was also a military policeman in the Army - I'll update if I get one.

While I was looking through the scrapbooks I found this picture of my Uncle Ronnie (my dad's oldest brother) standing on the steps of my Great Grandparents' (Hosselton) house around 1944 (while my Grandpa was on a ship overseas with the Navy). I don't think I would've noticed this, but Erin pointed it out in her journaling. You can see in the window a flag with 3 stars. Each star represented each of their 3 sons that was serving in the war - Gill, Russ and Junior. Wow. Sometimes we become immune to the everyday scenes on the news about fighting overseas. Our hearts always break for the families that we hear about who lose a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, a sister, a brother. But in my day-to-day life I'm ashamed to say that I rarely think about what's going on over there. But when I saw that flag with the 3 stars hanging in my Great Grandparents' window, I was really struck. Three sons fighting in the war. I want to cry just thinking about the heartache I would experience if my two sons were fighting in a war, so I can't imagine how my Great Grandmother felt thinking about the safety of her three sons everyday.

So to all of you who are Veterans, we say thank you. And to all of you who have family serving right now, thank you. Thank you for your sacrifices for our country and for us and know that we are praying for you.

Blessings

It's very gray, dreary and cold out today. All of you know how much I dislike the cold, dreary winters here. I can feel my mood changing just looking outside and feeling my permanently frozen fingers. But as I ran out to get the mail a few minutes ago I thought back to how just 3 days ago I was sitting in that grass with my neighbors wearing FLIP FLOPS and realized that I have so many blessings in my life that maybe if I focus on them instead of that gray sky outside that I'll bear the winter better this year.

So, here is my list of blessings that God has put a great big flashing neon light on today:

1. Two wonderful girlfriends to sit in the grass with (and warm enough weather to wear flip flops)

2. The boys' friendships with the other kids on our street - especially the Adamses and the Duffs (we'd be lost without them) and who can forget my future daughters-in-law Grace and Clara

3. A night of uninterrupted girl time and scrap time with Vicki, who is one of my very best friends along with her wonderful family. We love that we live so much closer to them now and can hang out together more often.

4. Rest time. Ethan actually napped today and Elliott played quietly in his room. Aaaahhh....

5. Family. It's so rare now that marriages last over 10 years, and we feel blessed to have parents on both sides who have been married for over 30 and 40 years. Blessed also that they love us so much and we get to see them and enjoy them often.

6. A really nice weekend alone with Brian. My parents wanted the boys to come over to their house, so we were so excited to have time to ourselves. And it was so nice - in the mid-to-upper 70s all weekend so we took advantage of it and went hiking (hadn't done that in a long time). Beautiful fall trees!!

And for some blessings that seem little but are equally exciting to me today....

7. A brand new scrapbook magazine in my mailbox this afternoon

8. Totally blessed that most of these babies had a place to go besides my hips! (Thank you Brian for taking them to work with you!)

9. A good Christian radio station - JoyFM (94.1)....although I do still miss the FISH in Atlanta - and there's another blessing....being able to listen online!