-Happy Thanksgiving-

Happy Thanksgiving to all our North American friends and family. Today happens to be my favorite holiday that we celebrate in the U.S.! I love the history behind it and the meaning. It is not about commercialism or greed, but the joy of being together with family and being THANKFUL for all the things that God has given us, done for us, etc! Because of its simplicity, this holiday often gets lost in the shuffle. This is our third Thanksgiving away from our family in the States. We miss you all like crazy... ALL 90 members of our immediate families (as in parents, brothers, sisters, in-laws, and nieces and nephews!). Yep, we've got a lot of you guys to miss! Sending lots of love and wishing that you enjoy all that AMAZING American food and are properly thankful for it, as we would be if we were there!!
Stay tuned, because tomorrow I plan to add to this post a Thanksgiving song that we are recording today and pictures of the time we had with our friends in honor of this great holiday!! I just wanted this post to be posted on the actual Thanksgiving Day rather than the day after...

UPDATE SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30
Hmm... well, this isn't exactly the day after like I had hoped, but here is the update with the promised pictures and the link to the song! But first a favorite passage of scripture!

                                                         Psalm 100
                          "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. 
                    Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. 
                  Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we 
                   ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
       Enter into his gates with THANKSGIVING, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him,             and bless his name. 
            For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations."

  Emily and I started early making pies and desserts. Emily like her Grandma B. is amazing at making pies. I figure that with such amazing pie makers in the family, I can stand back and just applaud the efforts! Emily made a double crust apple pie and an apple crumble pie that were both super yummy.

Peeling lots of Granny Smiths

 I made pumpkin cheesecake bars that were super yummy, if I do say so myself! And of course, the traditional Pumpkin pie, as well!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars anyone?

We brought the Pumpkin Pie Spice and canned pumpkin from home, but had to get creative with the other ingredients.

Bonle, is the cream cheese product and Tosh, the graham cracker!

 The other kids stayed busy making name tags for the guests. They turned out really nice!

Jake and Jennifer were the first guests to arrive. We took a picture of their expanded family from last years Thanksgiving photo. Three more boys and a new one on the way! Busy folks!

The Beaty Family 2014

The CDA volunteers arrived next, Hannah, Danyelle, Sarah, and Daniel. They also brought S. and A. with them from the baby home! We all sat around and chatted while we waited for Vico and Elena to arrive!

And then it was time for FOOD. Everyone brought a dish to share and there was plenty to go around!

Jake and Jennifer brought the turkey this year and it was fabulous. Maybe it has been too long since I have had turkey, but I think it was the yummiest ever!

Jake doing the honors of carving the turkey!

Myself, carving the chicken...and scoping out the desserts!

Check out all the desserts in the picture above. It was truly a second course! If you went away hungry it was your own fault!

Emily enjoying her turkey leg!

Volunteers Sarah and Daniel, (brother and sister) are from Ireland and this was their first Thanksgiving! They seemed to enjoy their time!

Danyelle, Sarah, and Hannah holding C.

We were happy that Vico and Elena could make it for the celebration. Elena is expecting their first BABIES! Twin girls! She isn't due until the end of January, but with twins you never know! She sure looks great and really healthy.

Vico, Elena, Jennifer, and Sophia

The whole group...feasting!

S. chowing his T-giving dinner!

We were really thankful for Hannah bringing "our" Bolivian babies out for dinner. They seemed to enjoy their time. We sure enjoyed them.
After dinner we sang some songs and shared what we were thankful for. We are thankful that we have friends to celebrate this great American holiday with!

A. did too!

And the song we did for Thanksgiving, actually only got done tonight. You can go to the following link to listen to it!
https://soundcloud.com/ejb-4/give-thanks