Gratitude, Love, & Tiny Teachers

I had the greatest Thanksgiving holiday. I came to realize that regardless of the hustle and bustle of family life, the daily fights over bathrooms, clothes hanging in every corner in my house where there is a rod or a hook, cleaning up after one meal, only to start a new one, tired & cranky teen shift workers just coming off the graveyard, every car we own needing new tires, worrying about teens driving on possible icy roads with crappy tires, the one hour of panic first thing when the Traeger wouldn't turn on to cook the turkeys, yes! Turkey(s) as in two of them... The boys fixed it in no time & believe it or not, three days later, both turkeys picked clean!, wet towels everywhere, washer, dryer, dishwasher, and my oven all deserve some type of appliance of the year award, I don't think they had stopped running once, there was a little drama, but lots of love behind it, a few misunderstandings, a couple birthdays, Happy Birthday, Dad & Denise!, a baby boy was brought into our world, not Jesus, but just as precious... come on people I am talking about Thanksgiving week, not Christmas!!!, Congrats to my brother and his beautiful family!, dog slobber is everywhere in my attempt to avoid confrontation because having loved ones close is actually more important to me most of the time, we missed a few, but also gained a few, Kylie was remarkably better all weekend, only a headache to mention which contributed to the cranky teens cited above. They still don't have a verdict of boy or girl, but she actively started to feel her little peanut moving around inside her belly. She said it's strange because once she realized one little movement, she feels it all the time now. I smiled as I bottled that moment in my memory. If you have every been pregnant before, you know exactly that moment, and I am over the moon that I had the privilege to be there when she learned the very first of many things that her child will ever teach her. Regardless of all this hustle and bustle, I am so greatful for having the ability to live in the moment of it all. I am especially grateful for having eager-to-shop teens willing to go snag some smoking good Black Friday bargains for me. Those prices are unbeatable having so many to buy for! I am so greatful for the lessons I have learned also. I spent a lot of energy keeping kids focused on the tasks at hand, in retrospect not really sure why this was so important. I worried about the many hours of video gaming eventually sucking their brains out. Their brains are still in tact as of this morning! A misunderstanding almost propelled me into a situation, that thank goodness, I realized early on that it really didn't have anything to do with me. Resulting in only a few tears. Hard to believe I was actually worried about other's intentions, as if it even matters to me. Damn those codependent  tendencies! In the big scheme of things, the truth really is that my family was here with me, thank you for secretly holding my hand (you know who you are) when I wanted to hang my head and cry, and when the ones who couldn't be here sent well wishes anyway, and the ones that stopped in just to make an ornament and share a memory, made me happy and filled me up with the greatest love that is possible. Definitely the greatest holiday so far, even with the daunting task of housework to be done in the week ahead. 

"Let's watch our hard work at the beginning of the week payoff when we have to create new goals & have many wet towels to wash at the end of the week"~AM