We didn’t plan on celebrating Thanksgiving officially but in an unofficial capacity I am VERY thankful nonetheless. Every night I make it a practice to run through the positives and the things I am thankful for and send that out to God and the world. The list is amazingly long! Family tops the list… I don’t know what I would do without my 4 angels or my soulmate, our friends (talk about support!), extended family, our health (thank goodness Ken has his back!), our personal gifts and abilities, the list goes on and on… I am thankful for the ability to talk to the world through this blog, for the people I come into contact with here and elsewhere on the internet, for the knowledge I have now about what I can do and accomplish with little or no… the country I live in and the safety we feel in our own home. It is hard  to not feel a little more blessed when you actually count your blessings!

Sunday did not quite go off without a hitch. The twins and Ken headed out to Sunday School only to find that since it was a long weekend there was no class. The boys were so upset they asked daddy if they could go to another church to THEIR Sunday School – after all they drove past one on the way there! So they stayed for some of the service, and then watch a bit of one of their videos in the van before heading over to the Superstore to get what I needed to cook dinner. I had printed off another Michaels coupon for 50% off and called the store to check on the price of the beads so since they are closed tomorrow for Thanksgiving Ken and the boys ended their outing there to pick up a container of 11’000 beads and two of the large square peg boards (YAY)… we figured the cost was worth it for the enjoyment the family will have AND the gifts that can be made from them.

I have already started on my gingerbread house, though there is concern that there may not be enough of the light brown for the walls. Ken figures we will either take our 40% off coupon or wait for another 50% before Christmas and get more if that is the case.

1st of 4 Walls!

It was this mess on the table (trust me it was a lot worse than the picture I took later that evening!) that forced the boys to picnic in the livingroom for their dinner. Not exactly a hardship as they are always up for a little change at meal time!

Dinner was a bit of an experiment. I figured I wanted to go for a simple casserole out of the Company’s Coming Casseroles (Jean Pare)… my mom and I LOVE this series of cookbooks!

Beef and Corn Bake

2lbs ground beef

1 med onion chopped

1/4 cup cooking oil

12 oz. kernel corn

2 cans condensed cream of tomato soup

1tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1tbsp ketchup

2cups cooked noodles

1cup grated cheddar cheese

Put ground beef, onion and oil in frying pan. Stir to break up meat as it browns. Drain off fat. Discard. Put meat mixture into large bowl.

Put corn, soup, salt, pepper and ketchup into same bowl. Stir to mix together with meat.

Prepare noodles according to package directions. Drain. Measure. Combine with all ingredients in bowl. Pour into 3-quart (3.5L) casserole.

Sprinkle grated cheese over top. Cover. Bake in 350F oven for 45 min. Remove cover and continue to bake until cheese is melted and bubbly. Serves 6-8.

We did not have a 3.5 L casserole dish so I used our roasting pan.

It went over REALLY well…next time I will double it to have leftovers!

My friend Kathy came by in the morning on her way to pick up her house guest for the week. It was nice to catch up since she lives over 3 hours away in the same city as my brother and his family. Emanuel enjoyed having her there to watch him stack his blocks! In fact I think he ADORED being the only kid around after Trinity headed off to an early nap!

We finally had another completion with our lapbooks – our Volcano lapbook. I must admit I am VERY proud of this one! Not overly complex as the boys’ focus was really just on the erupting of our own volcano but I threw in some information and such to round things off.

Here are the links we used:

This is the picture Zander used as his little glittered piece. The picture Emanuel and Gavin used. V is for Volcano image. Our recipe for the erupting of the volcano. Our volcano mini book in the pocket. The two statements I used for extra information as well as a few other volcano ideas we did not use. We used a 12X12 piece of poster paper that Ken creased on one side 4 inches from the edge. The other side was a 6 inch piece from another piece of poster paper taped on. The volcano on the front was made from brown cardstock and red and green felt. Each of t he boys drew their own interpretation of a volcano and we included a picture of the kids with the finished volcano and one of it erupting. The kids were very happy with the result!

Tomorrow the plan is to get started finishing the Colour and Shape lapbook… and hopefully head over to the nature centre for the dinosaur drop in activity. Of course the boys REALLY want to sit down and play with the new beads so I am sure we will find some time for that too! So thank you all for reading my blog and thank you for your support!

Duck and Cover Cuz We are Keeping Busy AND Thankful!