I just looked at my posts. I passed the 100 mark two posts ago! A while back I determined to do something special for it, but it came and went without my notice. So, here is the very anticipated, celebrated and special post number One Hundred and Two!
Yes, the bold text is what makes this post special! It's more of a personal celebration I suppose. There are a lot of things as a mother or wife or anybody really that you determine you're going to do before life gets in the way and they fall by the wayside. You explain them away as unimportant or unrealistic. But, this blog is NOT one of those things. I've managed through all the moving, having babies, computer crashes, and general life, to keep this thing going! Wow. If you're in the same boat, give yourself a pat on that back. Just because blogging is fun, doesn't always make it easy.
So, now to get to the point. My little baby is no longer a baby! Holly turned 2! For her birthday, we had Thanksgiving! We knew her birthday would be on Thanksgiving this year since she was born, so I've had 2 years to think about ways to make it special and separate it from thanksgiving. Well, I didn't really know we'd be in England for Thanksgiving, but that actually turned out to be a blessing. Here's how the day went down:
The night before we set up her presents in the living room so she could have them when she woke up. We were most excited about her shopping cart (trolley) full of food! She loves to play pretend kitchen, but those are very expensive and very not portable so we went with the collapsable alternative.
Atley was pretty sure his birthday had come again.
He sat chewing on a plastic french fry for about 20 minutes before I told him he could have some real ones to which he said "That's a great idea!"
After the morning birthday festivities, it was time to get started on the Thanksgiving food. We had a lot of American comfort foods planned and I wanted to be sure they were ready in time for our guests. Ian was a big help, though goofy at times.
We made twice baked potatoes, corn, rolls, homemade stuffing, turkey (of course), green bean casserole, a veggie tray, apple pie and ice cream. It was a GREAT meal. I was so proud of how well my turkey turned out. It was the first one I cooked by myself and in our tiny oven it was an especially great accomplishment.
Some notes about having Thanksgiving in England. We loved it! We were able to find just about all the comfort foods we have back home, but we didn't have to fight the crowds to get them! The lady at the grocery store even made a comment about that being the first turkey she'd seen. We'd purchased it the Monday before Thanksgiving and we had the pick of the lot.
Another positive was that nothing was closed on Thanksgiving so I sent Ian on that morning to pick some things up from the grocery store. As long as we were inside our house, we could have been anywhere in the world and it would've felt like we were in the U.S.A. The moment we stepped out however, we were reminded that we are in a different country and nobody was even thinking about Thanksgiving.
That also provided us with another positive. On black friday, nobody was crazy! We could go shopping without fighting crowds of people and begin our Christmas browsing and spending. It does however have the draw back of no extra special sales, but I find the crazy people come with the crazy sales. Ian always says he'd rather pay more for something or do without then fight through a crowd for it.
All in all, Thanksgiving was a great success! We really enjoyed our company and I think our company really enjoyed the Holiday. Only 2 of our 10 guests were American, but who doesn't love a good meal and a grateful heart? It's nice to share special parts of our culture, like Thanksgiving, with others. And what a better way to say we're thankful for our blessings then the share them with others!
Holly really enjoyed her birthday also, and I think we did an okay job of separating the two. A little update on Holly:
- She lets me put bows in her hair now!
- She LOVES to pretend! The other day I found the wise men from our nativity set swimming in her milk!
- She does not love babies! In fact, she is extremely jealous and has no desire to play with dolls at all.
- She is still small for her age, but she can keep up with the biggest of them.
- She LOVES more than anything, her Daddy! Ian always says "I don't know why she likes me so much!" She loves her Mommy too, but Daddy and Holly have something really special. She prefers him and that's okay with me!
