::thanksgiving::

"My brothers and sisters, to express gratitude is gracious and honorable, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven."

-Thomas S. Monson
(October 2010 General Conference)

(All 3 babies sleeping together @ Grandma Kitty's)

This year we were with my side of the family for Thanksgiving. We went down on Wednesday night and came home Friday. The kids thought it was the funnest thing ever! Billy and his family stayed there too, so it was nonstop playing with cousins for almost 3 days!!

We cooked lots of delicious things, ate a lot, and saw Tangled (which was SO cute!) on Thanksgiving day (which I think is an Asay family tradition that I think we oughtta carry on :) ). We (and by we I mostly mean I) were in charge of stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin cheesecake. It all turned out pretty good. We ended up with a few leftovers-fewer than we should have thanks to the neighbors' dog! It was pretty cold weather (in the teens during the day), so Mom had a table set up in their garage to put food on. The garage door had been shut most of the time, but got left open because we'd been to the store and back a time or two on Thanksgiving day. When we were leaving for the movie, we noticed a dog in Mom & Kevin's front yard chewing on a turkey carcass. Then we realized it was our turkey!! (Mom and Kevin were going to make soup or something out of it). Not long after we noticed our Honeybaked ham was missing! Kevin found a broken platter in the front yard. DUMB DOG! Mom didn't think it was too funny, but hopefully she'll laugh about it next year :) We shopped on black Friday (as usual), but not with the 5am crowd. It was just too dang cold! Mom and I went out at about 9 and got a few things, and I'm happy to report that I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping!!

We have so many things to be thankful for. I'm thankful for my Father in heaven and all the things He has blessed me with. I'm so thankful for my family. I love Matt with all my heart and still look at him and get a little teary because I just think he's the most amazing person in the world. He's the best dad, the best husband, and makes life so fun. Each of the kids are happy and healthy and bring so much joy into our lives. I'm so thankful for our new baby that's due in March. We can hardly wait for her to get here! I'm thankful for our home, Matt's job, our health, our families, and all the little things here and there--like automatic garage door openers and those little plastic tips on our shoelaces so we can get them through the holes easier. We are just thankful.

In other news...
We decorated for Christmas over the weekend. The kids were SOO excited to help. When Matt was bringing in the tree, Coop kept saying "whoa, Da-da!!!!" and now every time he sees the tree, he says "Da-da did dat chwee, Mom" and "good job, Da-da!" Portie loved decorating the tree. Every time he'd hang something on it, he'd ask if it looked okay. Chloe can't get enough of Christmas music and turns on the same CD over and over again and dances around the living room. We got a grand fir. It looks pretty, and it's the most fragrant tree we've ever had. The whole house smells like Christmas.