Think Back Thursday ~ Thanksgiving

The theme today is, of course, Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for a lot of things but I will not list them all today.

I will just list a few.

Today I am thankful for:

Family

Friends

Salvation

God's work in my life

Traditions

This is my daughter Jessica (left) and my niece Jennifer. 

It is 1995 and Jessica is 7 yrs. old.

This photo was taken at the home in which I grew up.

Oh, how I miss that house.

My mom lives with my sister now.

The girls are getting the bread ready for the stuffing.

This is my son Nathan.

He was about 1 1/2 yrs old and boy did he need a haircut.

But he is adorable!

Nan (what most of the grandkids call my mother) gave him one of the beaters to keep him occupied and happy until dinner was ready. Eating off the beaters was a tradition of my mom's she loved to let people eat off the beaters and never scraped all the potatoes off. We had to test the potatoes and see if they were worthy of being put on the table. I loved doing this and so did the grandkids.

Those are the only 2 photos I have of that year and the only 2 I could find of Thanksgiving at my mom's house. I don't know if any other family members have any.. but that was all I could find.

It seems I don't have as many Thanksgiving photos as I thought.

The next photos are 10 years later.

Thanksgiving 2005

Nice looking bird.

 Back to front, left to right: Jessica, now 17, Me, Rachel age 20; Nathan age 11, my mom (Nan), and Christopher (our youngest) almost 9 yrs. old.

 Notice our Thankful tree. Each hand print is something we were thankful for. Each person had a color of paper to trace and cut their own hand prints out of for the leaves of the tree. Each day in Nov. up til Thanksgiving we each put a hand on the tree. Thanksgiving day we read the things we were thankful for.

Time to cut the bird.

 Someone is excited to get eating!!

Silly kids.

It is over and done with, the bird picked clean and the food put away all to quickly for all that work.

I hope you are having a wonderful Thanksgiving this year and I hope you take lots of pictures so you can join my meme next year and post your family photos.

Now it is your turn. I hope you have you post ready.

If you don't the linky will stay open all week so work on you post and get it linked up.

You can even do this year's photos if you want to or need to.

God Bless

"See You" next week for more TBT.

 Future Themes:

11/29 You/Yourself/Self-Portrait
a photo of you, taken by you or by someone else

a recent photo or one from days gone by

I still have to work on Dec. Themes

I am thinking of

Laughter

Togetherness

Christmas Traditions

Christmas Long Ago (how long ago is up to you :-)

What do you think of those themes?

Do you have a better suggestion?

Should I leave them in that order?

Leave me a comment.

Here are the Rules for participating:
The purpose of Think Back Thursday is to link up a photo post about something from the past. You can reach back all the way to your childhood and bravely post pictures of you in your wild clothes and hair styles or post something from last year and tell us about it. I'm not picky. Hey, even yesterday was the past... LOL My posts will mostly be about events that happened prior to blogging, as a way to share those things with the world.

• It can be about you, about your kids, about your parents, whomever. You can include video, I will not exclude video alone posts, but I prefer them along with photos, as this is a photo meme. I am doing a weekly theme now. That should help narrow it down from the myriad of photos we all have. For ideas check out the other posts in my label Think Back Thursday. 
• Link up below. Please use a permalink that sends readers directly to the correct post. If you are not sure what that is click the word permalink for an explanation. 
• Mention my blog and offer a link back. This is a requirement to take part and a kind gesture to me your hostess as well as your readers--they will know where to join in the fun, too. You can put the Think Back Thursday button on your site and in your post. You will find it on my right sidebar. Please use it to link to my site, to spread the word about my meme. Using the button will help others know how to find me and how to join. Tell others to click on the button in your post to find us here.
• Leave me a comment. First so that you can let me know what you think of my pictures and secondly so that I will know a new post has been linked up and I can come visit your blog and comment on your photos. 

Join me!

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Thankful... Day 30

It is the last day of the daily Thankful challenges. I want to remember that I have much to be thankful for all year long and not just in November. Today, I am thankful that I have a lot to be thankful for. I am thankful that I had the opportunity to write daily for the month of November about things I am thankful for. I hope you don't mind if I rehearse all that I was thankful for this month.

I am thankful for my God who supplies all my needs and some of my wants. I am a blessed woman and doing these challenges this month has impressed upon me how truly blessed I am. I have a wonderful husband and wonderful healthy (for the most part) children, godly women who have been a great influence over me, a great church, wonderful music to listen to and sing to my God, goals that I can set and hopefully accomplish, and a creative creator and his creation that I can enjoy and photograph and the gardens we have memberships to that we can walk through. I have the flexibility of homeschooling, many books to read, friends: near, far, and online; a wonderful church to go to and serve at, markers and colored pencils for all kinds of projects, and chocolate to enjoy more than I should. So far my husband's tests have been negative, they have found nothing serious that he needs to take care of, I pray that continues to be the case with the tests he has done later this week and next week. I have a home, which was clean when my friends came to visit but is cluttered right now, I need to finish Christmas decorating so we can get the tubs back into the attic until we take it all down after New Years. I have loving children, most of the time, and I am thankful for the family times we spend/spent together and the memories we make/made. I am thankful for the privilege of being able to go to Ladies Bible Study now that my children are older, and for all that I am learning/being reminded of through the book we are studying. I am thankful for our Wii, cookies and tea, board games; my scanner, printer, and laminator; our public library system and my computer. I am thankful I can be there to support my husband through his trip to the E.R.and through all these tests he is having, he did so much for me the years I was having children and through my gall bladder surgery. I am thankful for our home in which many of the things I am thankful for take place. I am thankful for being able to sing 4 part harmony with my husband and children for church and I am thankful for the Bible, God's Word, the light to show me the path to God.

So you see, there is so much to be thankful for and I am thankful for all of it and that I had the opportunity to share with my readers the many things God has done/is doing to bless me.


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Thankful... Day 29

I don't have a lot of time tonight. We are at the end of the month and for the first time ever we are low on bandwidth for the Internet. I did not want to just skip the last 2 day though... so short and sweet it will be.

Today I am thankful for the Bible. It is a light and a guide. It tells it how it was and how it is. I reveals sin that is in my heart, piercing me. It encourages me. It tells the stories of others who walked on this earth and served God, some of them even failed and sinned and it is comforting to know they know what it is like to be grieved over things you have done wrong.

It is the true record of creation. I thank God for that.

It is also the revelation of the life of Jesus Christ, come down from heaven to live with sinful man and die for us to reconcile us to God. It tells us that if we confess our sins God will forgive us and cleanse us. It tells us that Christ was tempted to sin and understands all that it means to be human. Yet he was God. It tells of God's Love for us, his mercy, his kindness, his understanding, his power, and much more.

I am thankful that I have a guide I can follow for all of life. Something that I know is always true and will give me the answers I need for all of life.

Thank you God that you inspired the writers and protected your word through all these years.

So, read your Bible it is your...

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Thankful... Day 28

Today I am thankful for my computers. Yes, I have 2.
I have a desktop computer and a laptop . My hubby got me the laptop computer so I could use it in the dining room while the boys were doing school. I use it at other times also. Without my computers I would not be able to blog, be on Facebook , Tweet, do e-mail, play games, search for printables for school, download freebies, make my own spreadsheets for our school logs and print them, scan, correct and save photos, play movies or watch t.v. stuff on Hulu while I work, or chat with my hubby over Pidgin while sitting next to him on the couch. Do any of you chat over your computer with people in the same room?? It is lots of fun. We especially like sending each other messages with the emoticons in them. For instance, today he was in our bedroom and I was down in the dining room. He asked how school was going and I just put the snail emoticon in the message. He got it. School was going soooooo sloooooow.

Most days I don't need this...   when working on the computers, and only once in a great while do I want to do this but when I do I am glad I have my talented hubby to fix things and make my computer run great again.

I am also thankful that I found  http://zaazu.com  so I could have so many cool smileys to add to my blog posts


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Thankful... Day 27

I was already thankful for music once this month but I just have to thank the Lord for bringing together our singing this morning. My family sang "Count Your Blessings" this morning in church for special music.We sing 4 part harmony A Capella. My husband sang the melody/lead, my daughters Rachel and Jessica sang alto, I sang tenor, Christopher and Nathan sang bass. All week long we have felt antagonistic when trying to practice singing. Yesterday my husband and I were really struggling with facing Christmas with him being unemployed for 20 months now. Then this morning my sons had an argument to start off the day. Once we got to church, however, the Lord seemed to smooth things out. Each of us was touched by the scripture reading and songs chosen by our Pastor and praise team. I am thankful we were able to have time to praise the Lord before we had to do our special music. This song especially touched me and my son Christopher...

I thank the Lord for music. I thank him that his word and music bring such peace to us. I thank him that he answered the prayers I prayed about our singing and how the family was getting along. I am thankful that he allowed us to feel thankful again before we had to sing.


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Thankful... Day 26

 

Today I am thankful for our library. We have a wonderful library system. It used to be county wide now it is state wide. I can get books and videos from all over my state. 

Recently, my boys and I read The Printer's Apprentice by Stephen Krensky. We enjoyed the book very much. We even learned a few fun facts. On page 11-12 the books says:

"Gus got busy sorting some used type into the proper cases. Capital letters went into the upper case. The other letters went into the lower case."

Did you know that is how upper case and lower case letters were named? I sure didn't.

Here is another cool fact that we found from pages 35-36: 

"The weather affected Master Bradford as much as anyone. He became impatient at any delays. He was especially gruff when missing a sort - a letter in the particular type style he was using - while setting type. Being out of sorts often ruined his mood for hours."

Did you know that was were the saying "out of sorts" came from. 

You can learn a lot from books and I love my library. I borrow a lot of things from our library and a couple local libraries know us by name. If you have not been to your local library lately the go, check out some books.

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Thankful... Day 25

Today I want to say that I am thankful for my scanner, printer and laminator.

This is my scanner. I use it almost daily. Mostly, I use it for school, but I have used it to scan old photos that were taken before I had a digital camera. If I did not have my scanner I would be running to a copy place weekly. I am so thankful for it. I also would not be able to do Blast From The Past because I would not have all my photos scanned into my computer and ready to publish.

Next I am thankful for my printer
It is my most used piece of homeschool equipment, not counting books.
I print things for the boys weekly, and some times daily. I make my own pages for recording what we do daily for school and print them. I print notebooking and lapbooking pages. I print stuff for myself, like the complete book list for the Grace Chapel Inn series so I know what books to order next. My hubby prints stuff for his unemployment, I print stuff for my daughters.

I like that it is a laser printer. That way, if I am just printing black, the color does not get used up also, like in an inkjet printer. The ink costs more but it lasts a really long time. I really love my printer.


I also love my laminator. I mostly got it and use it for our workboxes but I also use it for other things. 

 For instance, I laminated my yearly goals for 2011 last Jan. and keep it posted so I can review them and accomplish more this year. I also laminated 2 copies of our grading scale for school so I would have one downstairs and one upstairs.

AND, totally unrelated....
I am also thankful for leftovers.
We don't have to cook anything today.
I will enjoy the food more today than last night. We did not get our Thanksgiving meal done until 6 pm. By then I was so tired that I didn't even eat much, I even skipped having any pie.
Today we will put up our Christmas decorations and eat leftovers and relax.
We do not go out and shop on Black Friday.
We do most of our shopping online.

So, that is what I am thankful for on this day after Thanksgiving.
How about you?
Only 5 days left, not counting today, for the thankful challenges...
though we can and should be thankful all year long.

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Thankful... Day 24

First I wanted to say




Today, and every day, I am thankful for our house.



God miraculously provided it for us 13 1/2 years ago.
We have a Habitat Home.
We helped build it, my husband and I and our 2 neighbors who also have Habitat homes.

Groundbreaking

 the potential homeowner families

my family

Building Begins. The basement was poured and we started the framing.
 

My hubby

My hubby and I lifting floor joists. I am in the striped shirt on the left with the white hat.

Crane lifting the roof trusses.

Me standing in our future front door.

Nathan and I in our future dining room...

...stairs are not in yet.

After the stairs get put in we go up...

Nathan standing in his future bedroom.

Rachel and Jessica in their future bedroom.
Rachel is holding Christopher.

The family, except Rachel because she is taking the picture, in the Master Bedroom closet.

Roof is on, now it is time for the siding and brick front to be put on.

that is me on the scaffolding all in blue looking at the camera.

I was the only volunteer that showed up the day the guys came to put up the scaffolding.


The crew and I took a picture when they came to take down the scaffolding.

They counted me as one of the crew and I was proud of that.
 

Lunch Time

The president of Habitat For Humanity of New Castle County, Kevin

Time to start working on the insides

Moisture resistant Drywall, with enhanced protection against mold and mildew for the bathroom.

Kitchen cabinets

Painting

Grading the dirt for the future lawn.

Habitat keeps costs low by using lots of volunteers.
Members of our church came and volunteered
My Brother and Sister-in-law came to volunteer.
Here they are putting up the boys ceiling fan and light.

The flooring and cabinets are in.

Time for the house dedication.
Kevin Smith the Pres. of HFH of NCC

My baby boy! Such a cutie.

The kids and the crowd

Getting our keys.

Each homeowner has a turn to speak.

Praying a blessing on the homes.
Those close enough touched the house, those not close enough held hands.

I am thankful for our home. I am thankful that we were chosen from the many, many families that tried out for the home we received. Before we got this home the 6 of us were living in a tiny mobile home with only 2 bedrooms. Our previous living conditions are what allowed us to get this house. I am thankful that we have such a low mortgage. It has allowed us to keep our home through many financial trials. Habitat does not charge any interest, thanks to donated materials and time from many volunteers. The money we pay in for our mortgage goes to build more Habitat homes. I am thankful for the I am thankful we have a basement. Habitat of NCC stopped making homes with basements after they made ours... it was too expensive. We need and use our basement and I can't imagine where we would put all the stuff we have stored down there.

I am thankful our home was kept safe last night.
It is such a GOD thing that I was working on this post last night when we heard the fire engines turn down our street. There was a fire in the duplex next to ours.

There were 10 fire trucks on our street and on the main road next to our house, along with paramedics, ambulances, and police. I am thankful for our volunteer fire fighters.

I am thankful that no one was hurt.

 I did not get pictures of the actual fire because they made us evacuate our home and I did not think to grab the camera. These photos were taken after they let us get back in our home. The flames were shooting out that upper window and out the roof. Sparks landed on our roof. It was a scary time and the wind was blowing right toward our home and there is a big tree between the houses. I know the family in the right hand home, with the burnt out window, was going to spend the night in a hotel. There home is the one that was on fire. I don't know if the family in the left hand home got to sleep there or not. I pray each family has a place to celebrate Thanksgiving. I am sure they have a lot of troubles they will have to deal with, but I am sure they are thankful to all be safe and together. I pray God's blessing on them especially today and in the months to come as they make repairs on the homes.

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