Our long Thanksgiving weekend

Good day, blog friends.

{insert great big giant happy face right here}

♥

I hope this blog post finds you well and happy this morning. We had such a great Thanksgiving weekend celebrating gratitude with people we love. I was a bit preoccupied with preparing food so I don't have as many photos as I would like to have for this weekend recap. I'll share what I do have though, and you'll get the jest of our weekend. :o)

My sister (Valerie) and her family arrived Wednesday evening and she brought us some housewarming gifts. Among the gifts was this cute blue serving tray she found on Etsy. LOVE it! I used it for different purposes throughout the weekend. So fun!

We waited until just before Thanksgiving dinner was served to set up our tables. My sister-in-law, Liz, did some quick work finding a napkin-folding-tutorial on Pinterest! And my 7-year old nephew, Stone, had colored some placemats to use. He wrote what he was thankful for on each placemat. "I am thankful for loving you guys."

Random corner of our house with my quick attempt at...well...I won't even call it chalkboard "art." It served its purpose though, with wifi info and our hashtag for the day. (Those wings at the top of the photo are some that my father-in-law bought back from the Philippines when he was serving in the Marine Corp back in the 1960's.)

And now some random food photos:

Mmmmm... My sister makes these yummy stuffed mushrooms that I was really looking forward to! We had them for appetizers before our Thanksgiving dinner and I grabbed the final four and tucked them away for selfish reasons. I thoroughly enjoyed them the following day as a snack.

I spent a chunk of time on Saturday morning bagging up leftovers and freezing packages of turkey, ham, brownies, and pumpkin pie. Here's what I did with my sister's leftover asparagus that was topped with crumbled bacon and feta cheese:

I used six leftover dinner rolls, four eggs with a little milk/salt/pepper, the leftover asparagus/bacon/feta cheese. Mixed it, baked it for about 20 minutes, and we enjoyed a really yummy breakfast on Saturday morning! I am pretty proud of myself for repurposing (and freezing) all those leftovers this year. We'll see if I actually bust out the frozen turkey at all, or if the entire bag will be tossed this time next year.

And last but not least, my people:

The best part and biggest blessing is that we got to spend time with this amazing group of people. I love that our family is growing and changing. This year we added Carrie's beau, Andrew, and his son (little man with his hand on my arm ♥), and my step-dad brought his lady-friend, Natalia. There we are, in all our glory, cluttered countertop and all. My favorite photo of the entire weekend (thanks to Carrie!).

I just checked the calendar and counted. Christmas is three weeks from this Friday! Gulp. And how?!?! I'm making the choice to remain perfectly calm. Well...I'm making the choice to remain as calm as possible. Time to start prioritizing and letting go of some items that may not be totally necessary.

I'm off to hit my yoga mat and then make my way through this work week. Super fun news is that the office where I work is closed for two weeks around Christmas, so there's some vacation time in my near future. :o)

If you live on a piece of the planet where Thanksgiving was celebrated last week, I hope your holiday was as wonderful as ours. And regardless of where you live on this planet, I am grateful that you visit my blog from time to time and read my words.

Happy holiday season, sweet friends!

♥