Thanks and Giving

We hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving holiday!   This year for us was full and busy with family, but it was nice to be able to spend time with both our families and spend a day (or two in our case) reflecting on what we are thankful for. All the blessings God has so graciously bestowed on us!
Since John and I decided not to go to Texas Camp this year (a folk dance camp held annually over Thanksgiving weekend) we were able to spend both Thanksgiving day and the day after with family.

My mom cleaning up after the meal (which was very yummy!).

 

Lydia helping while Caley plays paparazzi.

 

James playing with Great Grandma Pedersen.

James, Grandma Pedersen, and Andrew. James was quite interested in Andrew's head and ear.

 

 

James opening his Thanksgiving gift from Great Grandma.

 

 

John's family exchanges Thanksgiving gifts with his Grandma every year. This year we gave her cookies!

James and our house.

John and me.

 

Earlier this month I created a Thanksgiving Tree. Each night after family devotions we would each write on one leaf what we are thankful for, color it, then put it up on the tree. The point of this is to help get us thinking more of what we are thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving day.
The trunk and limbs I just roughly cut from some scratch paper, and then printed and cut out a template of a maple leaf.

Our Thanksgiving tree

 

 

The Saturday before Thanksgiving we went to a Civil War Reenactment at Liendo Plantation in Hempstead with John's Grandma (who was in town for Thanksgiving) and the Wades. It was a very enjoyable day! Long, but enjoyable.

When we arrived there was a fashion show going on. One lady who owns all of these amazing historically accurate ladies costumes was having some of her girls model them. The speaker (the one who owns the costumes) would go into detail about how it was historically accurate, along with some other information about what women would wear in the 1800's. It was very informative and I (Megan) really enjoyed being able to see so many historically accurate Victorian era costumes!

A walking outfit

A skating outfit

Some of the many beautiful costumes!

The Liendo plantation house was beautiful! We took a tour of the home (no pictures were allowed to be taken inside).

There was a real wedding we watched, and also a battle reenactment. One disappointment of the battle is that there was a lot of gun and cannon fire, but no people (that we could see at least) fall down dead or wounded... So it didn't seem that realistic.. Oh well. :-)

We had such beautiful weather! It was cool, but not too cold. We three dressed up in costume for the fun of it! I borrowed my sister Emily's dress and apron, and wore my straw bonnet and knit shawl, John wore jeans, a peasant shirt, and a vest I made for him a while ago, and James wore a shirt (with cute elbow patches!) and overalls! (I ended up being the one who took all the pictures, so this is the only picture we have of all three of us together. It was taken just before we left the plantation.)

 

James is now eight months old! He has four teeth, and does an army crawl to get around. He is pretty funny to watch scoot around the house and just listen to him playing. It's amazing how much he is learning! We have been working on not screaming among other things and it is encouraging to see him choose to obey. Though progress is small, it's seen every day!