We Can Give Thanks!

Even in difficult times like these, we can give thanks. God is good. His love endures forever. And only in Him we can find comfort and strength.

The kids do tons of crafts everyday. It gets messy over here. And sometimes I feel guilty for how much "doesn't make it" into the kids files. (They have decided that a giraffe and a raccoon who live in the clouds in a big castle come at night and steal their artwork.) But we did some cute projects in November which adorned the mantle through the month.

Every year, the week prior to Thanksgiving, we all say what we are thankful for at dinner and we write it on a piece of paper to hang on the mantle:

Other mantle projects - pumpkin and egg carton turkeys:

For Thanksgiving we headed down to Oregon for a couple of days. The kids love Embassy Suites. We've done this 3 times now for Thanksgiving with the Johnson side. Their favorite things are swimming in the pool, watching TV, riding the elevators and walking around our floor - (All the kids do it on all the levels. It's funny to look up and see kids going around and around all over.) I made the mistake of letting them kick a beach ball around the 4th floor and it went over the railing and all the way down to the lobby - oops. It sounded like a good idea.

Here they are watching a morning TV show - a hotel luxury.

On Thanksgiving day we headed off to the Portland zoo! It was super cold and rainy, but we had a good time and the animals still wanted to see us.

Our favorite animals were the huge polar bears, (one gave us a lovely peeing show)

and the lions, who came right up to the glass. They were gorgeous and so big!

Here's our Thanksgiving meal. The kids sat around the coffee table. A lovely microwaved feast. Our table full of mashed potato and stuffing filled yogurt containers. Martha Stewart might have a heart attack, but we have a fun think outside the box family who's not ashamed to have free Shirley Temples and wine at the manager's special for dessert!