Today is a holiday and it has truly been simply that. The whole day has been relaxed and pleasant. Just our family. This morning I made a big pancake breakfast and we brought everybody around the big table(even the babies in their booster seats-over carpet, cringe!). Over breakfast, Richard read Psalm 136. We did something new with it. Psalm 136 is an interesting psalm that is really a Hebrew song of praise and worship to the One and Only True God. Each verse begins by naming something wonderful God had done. The second half of each verse all the way through is like a song refrain: "for his mercy endureth for ever." So we treated it like that. Daddy read the first part of the verse and I got the kids to chorus in with "for his mercy endureth for ever." It was a great way to listen to all the things God has done, to help the kids memorize part of Scripture, and to join in the "thankfulness" reading. The littler ones thought it was a great game, but they were learning! After breakfast, we made place mats for the afternoon's big dinner. We got out the crayons and white paper and designed beautiful picures. Then I dunked each person's hand in brown paint and stamped it in the middle of the paper to make a turkey. I gave it a blue painted dot of an eye, and crayoned in orange feet and beak and a red "gobbler". Richard & I even joined in; it was fun. We let them dry all day so they could be our place mats for dinner. Then the kids helped me put colored marshmallows in the jello I mixed up. James got to put the first handful in since the marshmallows were his idea. :) Richard played hockey with the kids in the garage in the afternoon.
When all was ready, we had a lovely candlelit dinner. It really was very good and lots of fun. This is how the placemats and candles worked: James lost his placemat so I gave him mine; hence I had none. Jane poked a hole through Grace's placemat. The girls trashed theirs over dinner. We found James' after dinner upstairs. Richard breathed too hard and blew one candle out right after prayer. James thought it was hilarious and wanted to blow out the other one. We let him try and he couldn't get his breath big enough. Finally, after spitting on everything in sight, he got close and took a big, bad wolf breath. Out it went, to a whole table full of cheers.We asked each of the kids what they were thankful for: Gabe was thankful for everything(typical 7 yr old, lol), then he changed it to say he was thankful Dad was home and thankful that God let our whole family love Him. James was thankful for his new Calgary Flames hockey stick and ball and puck. Grace was thankful for candles. :) And Jane, well, we assumed she was thankful for food, because she was stuffing everything she saw into her mouth, ignoring it all. She also tried to blow out the candles, but I don't think her breath went past her plate.
Well, it is time to go eat the first successful batch of pumpkin pies I've ever made from scratch. Actually, I don't plan to eat the whole batch, just one piece. For a schoolteacher, that was a terrible sentence, I admit. Okay, on to the pie....