My Month of Thanks

Nordstrom said it right, I STRONGLY believe in celebrating one holiday at a time, especially Thanksgiving because it too often gets jipped (I don't know if there is a correct way of spelling that...) and it is such an excellent holiday. So to try and keep the Thanksgiving spirit alive and well all through out the month of November, I kept a basket with some small papers beside it on my dresser and made it a goal to write things I was thankful for all month long, I really tried to dig deep and acknowledge some of the major blessings, as well as some small ones, that I often take for granted of course this is an ever growing list that will never be complete seeing as there is so much that we are all blessed with. But here is the list that I came up with during this past November (they are in no particular order), I mingled it between some fall photographs I never got the chance to share, plus it is one thing that I am extremely grateful for, the beauty of nature.

* Church on Sundays
* Art
* My amazing family
* Feeling Joy
* The Prophet
* Contacts and Glasses
* My Parents House
* Children and their sweetness
* Heating and Air Conditioning
* My Travel Experiences
* Music
* The Internet
* Hair Straighteners
* My Laptop
* Temples
* Colors
* Feeling Motivated And Determined
* Scriptures and Scripture Commentaries
* Pets and the Joy They Bring
* Bird Songs
* The Seasons
* My Active and Responsive Mind

* Cell Phones and Most of Modern Technologies
* Memories
* Simple Pleasures
* My Patriarchal Blessing
* The Atonement
* My Talents
* Peace
* Lessons Learned
* Cameras and the ability to document our lives and world
* My apartment
* My Friends
* Tender Mercies
* Having the Ability to See my World and Hear its Melodies
* My Car
* Prayer
* All the Support I Receive
* Leaders Mentors and Examples
* Laughter

* Bad Times- So the good times seem SO much better
* Forever XXI
* Creativity
* My Happy Childhood
* Growing up in Utah
* Prayer
* General Conference
* Medicine
* Family Traditions
* Every Person that has contributed to who I am today
* Books and the Ability to Read Them
* Flowers
* Having a Mom and Dad who both worked at home so they could be major parts of my life
* Sunshine as well as Snow
* My education
* My Ancestors and all they Fought for
* My Freedom

The first Thanksgiving dinner I had was at my wards Thanksgiving party. We had our lovely feast at the beautiful Spring Haven up Hobble Creek Canyon, that place is amazing, complete with an indoor basketball court and a huge indoor tree house. I signed up to bring a dessert and created these adorable pumpkin spice bundties with cream cheese frosting, they are so fun to make!

Then came the big day, November 26, Thanksgiving Day!! Everyone signed up to make a part of our traditional meal, I made the rolls, it was so fun to all be in the kitchen together, creating memories and sharing laughter. As always Grammy had a fun thanksgiving activity for the little kids to do in the morning while we were all busy cooking up a storm and as always we all ended up making at least one candy turkey. I was enrolled in a floral design class at school and for extra credit we could make a floral center piece for our Thanksgiving day table, I took advantage of this opportunity and had so much creative fun! My dad is the dessert master and made his traditional pumpkin pie as well as a beautiful cherry pie that my mom helped him decorate for all the non pumpkin lovers in the family. I love Thanksgiving and all it stands for.