Good Quality Family Time

Argentinian/Brazilian/American Banquet!

I love the holidays when our family can be together much and enjoy not having anything to do but spend time with each other and our friends. We had a very nice Thanksgiving with some dear old friends we know from Brazil who also live in Florida.

The day after Thanksgiving, we took the kids, along with our neighbors and their two boys, to the Science and Discovery Museum where they had 25 tons of snow to play in! The kids were very excited to get to play in some snow here in Florida.

After we got home from our trip to the snow, we had a second Thanksgiving meal (leftovers) with the same neighbors and one other neighbor at our house.

Here are some pictures from the past couple of days:

On the menu...

In typical Thanksgiving-Eve fashion, I spent all afternoon and into early evening in the kitchen, preparing for a feast. We are spending Thanksgiving Day tomorrow at the home of some old friends. We will go bringing some traditions from my family. I prepared New England stuffing (a delicious mashed potato based stuffing also containing bread crumbs, onion, eggs, butter, sage, and seasonings), frozen salad (a delicious frozen side dish that is absolute heaven. Among its ingredients: mashed bananas, cream cheese, whipped cream, crushed pineapple, lemon juice, mini-marshmallows, walnuts, mixed and frozen into a gelatin mold) , and a chocolate cream pie (I'm not a fan of pumpkin so always substitute with a favorite!) We'll also bring along some cranberry sauce, wine and flowers.

What I'll be missing is spending Thanksgiving at my mom's. This year, she turns 75 on Thanksgiving Day. It's hard to be far from her on such a special occasion.

I had a little help in the kitchen (I admit, I have my own personal slicer and chopper named Edilberto!) My son got hold of the camera and took some pics. Some of him helping too.:

Giving Thanks

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(From: Merriam-Webster)

Thankful:
1 : conscious of benefit received 2 : expressive of thanks 3 : well pleased : glad
— thank·ful·ness noun

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Conscious of benefit received. Thanksgiving should be a time when we consciously reflect on all the things we have to be thankful for. This of course, should be a daily occurrence. But it is significant that we have a day set aside to collectively recognize all the blessings in our lives, as well as express our gratitude for them.

I am thankful for our family and the precious moments we spend together:

For the Lord's mercies being new every morning. For freedom. For food on the table. For good health. For the ability to laugh and love. For the beauty of God's creation that we get to enjoy. For the gift of friendship with so many cherished people. For sharing burdens. For celebrations. For being loved. For being forgiven. For life and for living. For fellowship with our Creator. For hope for Eternity. For every breath we take...

Every day, every moment, every breath is a gift.

We are truly thankful.

Feasting at School

We just returned from celebrating Thanksgiving with Liam and his classmates. The kids were so cute in their costumes. The mashed potatoes came out wonderfully. Phew! All worried for nothing. Everyone ate them except for my son! You'd think with a name like Liam (Irish), he'd like mashed potatoes. He'd eat rice over mashed potatoes. His taste buds must be predominately Brazilian!

Here are some pictures:

Mashed Potatoes and Thanksgiving Costumes

I like how at school, they spring things on you at the last minutes. I was volunteered to do mashed potatoes for 20 tomorrow. I know this would be easy for most, more adept cooks and homemakers. I almost break out in hives with the responsibility. I can make mashed potatoes, but food on a large scale always intimidates me. Even after having worked in kitchens to feed dozens at a time. I never liked it. So, I am thinking up ways of how to keep the mashed potatoes hot and yummy before they're served to the little Thanksgiving revelers.

Then, I have to come up with a costume for the kids for school tomorrow. Isabella will be coming with me for the Thanksgiving feast at Liam's school. Therefore, I have two pilgrims or Indians to dress, depending on what they're wanting to go as.

I won 4 tickets to see Dennis Miller tomorrow night. My neighbor is going with me. I have two other tickets, but I don't know who else would want to or could go. Edil's staying home with the kids. My neighbor took me to see a play at a local church theater a couple of nights ago. It was a play about a modern day Job (from the Old Testament). It was a tragedy, but with a good message. The high school kids who performed it did wonderfully. Dennis Miller will be quite different than the play we saw earlier in the week. My neighbor is leary about going thinking Dennis Miller might swear. Heaven forbid! She cracks me up. She's really loosened-up since she met me. I think I've had a good influence on her! ; )

Trip to Children's Museum

Liam had Veteran's Day off from school. I took the kids to the Hands-On Children's Museum that focuses on art for kids. They have a recycle emphasis exhibit. We brought recycled material to donate. I had no idea I'd be bringing in our recycled items, only to have to lug home three times more of it. They had bins filled with the stuff for kids to make "art projects" out of! Junk looks a lot better under the black light they had in the room where you did the artwork (which isn't evident with flash photography)! Here's some pics. from our day:

Yes, we're still here!

Thanks for checking-in. I promise to try and write more. Lord knows I've needed the outlet. I just don't have the words (nice words anyway!) to describe all that's been happening in our lives the past few weeks. We are having a rough time in having to make a change of plans from the reason we first came to Florida. We try and maintain things as normal as possible for the kids' sake. I honestly can't let myself think about the whole situation. I only allow myself some moments of that, but mostly have to keep my mind set on the day's activities in order to be able to function as a mother and keep things rolling.

Yesterday, there occurred a huge and heavy distraction from my own piddly (in comparison) problems. Another police officer was shot and killed (the third in as many months) here in South Florida. In fact, it happened very close to where we live (from our home we heard the endless sirens screaming right after it happened. We turned on the television to see what it was all about. We found it happened right on a street where we were to be driving down the next hour. We made plans to take an alternate route).

It was a morning of police and news helicopters, police cars, all hovering and scanning looking for the cop killer. He had nothing to lose with living under two life sentences already. He was armed and very dangerous. Soon, all the schools in our county were on lock down. That meant Liam's school too.

I got together with Isabella to pray for them to find and capture this person they were looking for. In fact, we prayed specifically for him to be caught within the half hour. Much to Isabella's delight (she was giving God hugs!), we found our prayers were answered within 10 minutes. He was caught.

When I picked him up from school, Liam described lock down as fun and as scary. He told me that someone had killed a policeman. The kids had to sit together in one corner of their classroom on the floor.

Soon after all of this happened, the Space Shuttle landed safely. Isabella and I went outside to see if we could see it returning or hear the sonic boom like we could last time. We didn't see or hear anything even though it was a beautiful clear day outside. At least the bad guy was caught, and the Shuttle returned without exploding. But sadly, one family is in mourning for yet another murdered police officer.

This evening, there was an ambulance outside at our next door neighbor's house. Their oldest son (7 yrs. old) has a cancerous brain tumor. We love this family dearly. Their boy is one of the sweetest little guys I've ever known. We immediately thought it might be him having some sort of crises. One of my good friends and neighbor phoned to tell me there was something happening next door. I went out front to see. Their other next door neighbor came outside very concerned as well. It turned out to be their younger son. He had had a bad asthma attack, but he was fine. They were taking him in as a precaution. His young mother went with him. She's been through a lot with her older son's illness. I felt for her with all that they've gone through. I wasn't able to talk with her before the ambulance left, but I gave the dad a hug, and a hug to our other neighbor who has become a very concerned "grandma" to this dear family.

Our problems sure are small in light of all of these things.