Feeling Ungrateful?

I should have posted for Thanksgiving...I guess that makes me ungrateful..I'm not. We had a busy week of getting stuff done and enjoyed a quiet Thanksgiving week at home...just us chickens. And we are grateful. We definitely see a stark contrast in our holiday season from last year to this. Thinking back, I really believed this year would be rainbows and butterflies. I am a very misguided person. But a strangely grateful misguided person. For all the trials we feel we have been through, and all the trials we feel we are currently experiencing, I have one constant--a deep abiding sense that everything will be okay. I don't know when or how, but I said that last year...and the year before..and somehow...it always is--okay.

So this year I'm most thankful for the love of our Heavenly Father and my faith in him. When the day seems long and dark, and the road seems lonely and barren, somewhere deep in my heart, I know he is there. I know he is aware of our little family and our needs. I know if we strive to do what is right, he will be there for us. I see it everyday in the little blessings and tender mercies that have come our way. His end to our trials may not come in ways we ever expected, but it will be okay--and better than we ever thought. (I hope)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ava's Pumpkin pie! Always a triumph when it looks good---and she wants to eat the whole thing!

The kids putting up the Christmas Tree.

Our "picnic" by the fire.

The baby birds want more leftovers! (Poor Colonel Mustard eats many meals this way. Two baby birds begging for bites until there's nothing left for him to eat!)