An Attitude of Gratitude

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I hope you and your family had a nice celebration.  We have so much to be thankful for.  I heard it said this week that a thankful spirit and a complaining spirit are like two roommates that cannot live under the same roof.  Someone has to pack their bags and leave!  Let's make sure we show the complaining spirit the door.

I knew this Thanksgiving was going to be a good one.  We do have a tremendous amount of things to thank our Lord for.  One of them is in the center of the photo below.  It's Benjamin.  He's standing up and walking!  Praise God.

Are things back to normal?  No.  Are things perfect?  No.  But he is alive and he is improving day by day and we can't stop thanking God and praising Him.  It's from Him that all blessings flow.  We had all of our kids with us, my Mom and Dad, my sister, her husband and her kids.  We gathered and laughed and talked and enjoyed one another's company.

In the photo above you can see that Laura Lee has opened some old family photo albums that she's looking at, remembering her childhood and reliving old memories and good times.  It's always good to remember the past that we're anchored to and be thankful for our families, the love we share and the God we serve.

We got so busy visiting, that I forgot to take photos when we were all eating.  I took this one when we were almost finished and the rest of the crew was visiting in the den.  We had a delicious meal with loads of leftovers.  No one left hungry, that's for sure.

We had turkey, ham, and beef brisket and more casseroles than you could shake a stick at.  I asked to help Tricia in the kitchen and she put me in charge of making a zucchini casserole that my grandmother, Bumby, used to make.  It's more like a soufflé.  There are lots of eggs in it.  Well, I have a confession to make.  I wasn't as diligent as I should have been and apparently, some egg shell made its way into the casserole (it's in the bottom of the photo below).  Several of us were chewing the crunchy casserole, having to spit out eggshell on a napkin.  I did not do a good job with this.  A lady at church today told me that this was a slick scheme of mine to not get asked to help in the kitchen next year!  

We didn't get a photo of Laura Lee before she took off back to Baton Rouge, but here is a shot of my Mom, Benjamin, my Dad, Russ and Tricia.

God has been so good to us!  We are incredibly thankful for all the works of His Mighty Hand.