My Girls

Thanksgiving is such a perfect holiday.

All about gratitude and food, what's not to love?

My mom took these shots yesterday.

I treasure them.

On a gray, winter-like morning...

I am cleaning up from the festivities of yesterday.

Poppy was blessed in church.

Sweet little Poppy cried through the entire thing, making her daddy quite nervous.

David gave a beautiful blessing as always.

I love all baby blessings,

but there is something especially tender about listening to a father bless his tiny girl.

We had a luncheon at our home after our meetings.

I received a new journal this weekend and knew pretty quickly what I wanted to use it for.

I love planning special occasions for my family,

usually jotting down long lists and ideas or sketches on paper.

I am hoping that it might be fun in years to come to flip back through this journal

and see the shopping list for a child's fourth birthday, or baptism, or graduation party.

Poppy's blessing is the inaugural entry in that little book.

I shared my thoughts about her blessing at the end.

But I suppose that I am also hoping somewhere down the road,

my family will read a bit deeper into the lists for

grainy Dijon and Gruyere,

and understand that those careful notes and planning are just evidence of

one way I attempted to show my love for them.

I hope they remember that we celebrated their important milestones,

that we celebrated them.

Shatto Milk

Pretty skies and no school on Friday.

We headed to the dairy farm.

I think everyone would agree that the best part was standing around sampling milk.

Root-beer, Strawberry, Banana, Orange and of course Chocolate.

We also tasted their traditional eggnog and the pumpkin spice flavor.

yum and yum.

(8 varieties of cheese and delicious sweet butter!...amazing)

It was a delightful tour,

the kind that makes you feel really good about supporting a farm like Shatto.
The drive out was beautiful,

and I began to ramble on about how I could really live in the country.

I pictured a big garden, fruit trees and wide open spaces.

Every little town out there has three things...

a Dollar General, a Casey's Gas Station and a Sonic/Pizza Hut/Subway (insert one).

But these days with technology, it wouldn't feel so isolating.

I mean, Amazon sells everything correct? UPS delivers everywhere, right?

Then David pulled out his phone and said..."There is no internet connection."

Ummmm. I might have to think on it a little more. :)

Happy Halloween 2011!

Happy Halloween!

From,

The Super Heroes

A Princess

And the Sweetest Little Strawberry

The Little Strawberry has a secret...SHE SMILES!