Early December Faves

December.......

....................and with it comes busy days of cooking, cleaning, baking, buying, wrapping, worshiping, working.......

Today I am taking the time to participate in Susanne's Friday Fave Five. It's a writing exercise to get us to look at our week and find the blessings.....some favorite things/moments/people in our lives........how about joining in?

I enjoy looking back and finding the little blessings God surprised me with....or things that I was able to count as blessings, whether big or small.....so...........here's my five from the past week:

Thanksgiving 2013

•  FAMILY TIME:  Last weekend (Thursday through Saturday) we celebrated Thanksgiving at my in-laws' beach house.  This was probably the last Thanksgiving there as it is now on the market.....but...my college gal drove down with her guy friend who is in his 2nd year at Gordon, and Dave's siblings were there (minus one sister who stayed out in CA).   We had a great time. The blessing for me was seeing Courtney whom we hadn't seen since helping her move back into her dorm in mid-August!!  In the photo, l-r are:  Ken (her friend), Courtney, Claire, Dave and our niece Debi. It was so great to see everyone and to meet Ken and have him be a part of our Thanksgiving celebration.

Courtney, age 20 & Claire, almost 15
at Buzzards Bay

• WALKS ON THE BEACH:  one of our fave things to do when at the beach house is walk around the peninsula community or on the beach. Thanksgiving was a little cold and windy, but sunny so we saved the walk for Friday morning before Courtney and Ken headed back to campus.  I snapped some pics with my iPad and we decided we would use one of them for the annual Christmas card to close friends and family.  The blessing for me was being with both daughters!!

2013

• DECORATING!  On Sunday, Claire and I dug out the tree from the basement, Dave plugged in the lights and we started decorating.  Claire did the bulk of the work while I started putting the candles in the front windows and decorated the other rooms in the house.  I'm going a little simpler this year...I got rid of a lot of old items and dug out some things I haven't used in recent years.....the house looks and smells festive.  Love it! It's a blessing to decorate for the celebration of our Savior's birth!

photo courtesy of sketchers website

• FLEX TRAINERS:  With the weekend sales, I was able to get Claire her high heels she wanted for her upcoming birthday, a pair of boots she needed AND my self these Flex sneakers.  They are a good, flexible walking or running shoe AND I can even wear them on flat hikes!  They are the most comfortable pair of sneakers I have ever worn.  They are very soft inside and the shoe is truly flexible with my foot.  It is like walking on air, with support!  I love them and the blessing is that with the pre-Christmas sales, I saved $84 on our entire purchase!!  

• MOSCOW BALLET!  At the time of this writing (Wednesday evening) I have not yet gone to this event.  It it happening on December 5th so tomorrow night as I write this.  The reason I am mentioning it here is because I KNOW this will be the highlight of my week.  A mother-daughter date, plus my daughter's best friend who is in her Russian class, too, out to see the entire ballet The Nutcracker.  We are very excited and know that we will be getting in just after midnight so I won't have time to  blog about it until next week.  What a blessing to have tickets to one of the most beloved ballets and the most known one for Americans and the even better blessing is that we get to see it done Russian style!!  There is NOTHING like the Russian ballet.  

That wraps up my week.

It's been a little crazy with ballet classes, work, shopping, housework and bill paying.  But the Thanksgiving pause was wonderful and I hope it was as good for you and your family as well.

Happy Weekend!!