Our Thanksgiving

It just seemed like this year's Thanksgiving has been the best one yet. One of the main reasons, I'm sure, was because we had parents with us to share and celebrate it with. Another factor that played into the stress free, peaceful, and charming Thanksgiving day was that most of the food was planned and prepared ahead of time. Yeay! I so love stress-free holidays and although it seems hard to do, I think I'm getting a hang of it.

So without further a-do, here is our home-made Thanksgiving table decor and festivities. I loved and appreciated the Thankful Tree, Ella's beautiful table tents and turkey card more than any store-bought decor, just because they mean so much more than just pretty decorations. Our hearts and talents (well, Ella's) are in them and that's worth more than anything to me.

Per Ella, we had an extra set of everything for a "guest" which she decided was going to be Jesus or Heavenly Father. And I agree, they should always have a honored spot at our table.

A closer look at the precious table tents:

(They each had a "seasonal" drawing on it, such as deer, turkey, bird, donkey with bandana, and a ... gun! Go figure, you need one if you're going hunting! :)
We ditched the traditional pumpkin pie and made marble cake for dad's birthday! It was delicious!!

(and no, we didn't start with cake!! ;))

We first had some yummy appetizers:

(Anchovies/sardines spread on French bread, soy cheese/cherry tomatoes/kalamata olives, spinach and tofu puffs, radish salad, grapes and apple slices.)

And then we moved on to deer tenderloin and pork chops (dad's favorites), with a side of green beans casserole (which was "enhanced" with bell peppers and portabella mushrooms), and Hrishi's yummy sweet potatoes. Simple meal but delicious and pretty easy on our stomachs.

Since we went for quite an untraditional Thanksgiving this year in the "meat" department, Ella was a bit dissapointed! She was really hoping to see a big plump turkey on the table. To ease her angst over this, I made a quick trip to the local grocery store and was lucky to find a AWESOMELY DELICIOUS turkey leg (a humongous one too!)

Here she is, enjoying the spoil. These speak for themselves for how pleased she was:

After the feast we took advantage of the nice weather and stepped outside for a walk in one of our nearby favorite spots:

                               Two happy couples!! :)

Then we came back and watched "Secretariat" We absolutely loved it!!!! It just seems that all horse movies are great! :)

And top it all off, we took a stroll in the historic downtown Grapevine to see the beautiful Christmas lights.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!



The Nutcracker: ta-daaaaa!!!!!

We've been living and breathing Nutcracker for the past week or so, tech rehearsal week, dress rehearsal, and finally tonight, the BIG opening night, and Ella's big debut on the stage. Tonight was PERFECT!!! I couldn't have hoped for a more special experience for her and us, as parents and grandparents, all sitting in that 300 plus anxious and proud sea of family and friends, teachers, all eyes and ears pinned to that stage. The show was fantastic, every single dancer was top notch, same goes for the orchestra. Guest dancers were principal dancers, Julie Kent and Jose Manuel Carenas with the American Ballet Theater Company, famous and well-known in their guild.

So here it is:

The pictures are no order as I'm a bit too excited (and a bit tired) to have the patience and lay everything out in order. :) Sufficeth to say, it was a night to remember. That has brought tears of joy and gratitude to my eyes, to see my baby up on that stage along with all those wonderful little or not so little dancers, all with fire and passion in their eyes and hearts for this beautiful art of the classical ballet.

Ready to rock'n roll:

The night before dress rehearsal, she was ready then!

Excited to be in her costume, finally:

With her dear mamaie:

The beautiful headpiece wrapped around the bun:

Getting her lipstick on:

With her good friend, Jana:

All of the Saturday show Cherubs:

Home late, after the show:

Very proud grandparents with one cute ballerina:

It was magical and beautiful in every single way.
Today I was up for a wonderful treat (again): I got to watch the ballet encore with my sweet ballerina so she can enjoy the show from the audience. I'm so glad we went: she soaked it all in!!! Quite amazed how still she sat and emotionally participated in the whole thing. She had a favorite student teacher she cheered for fervently. I did too. [And while sitting there with her on my lap and clapping in frenzy almost, I realized once more how very very much I love ballet. Funny little story: when I was in middle school I used to pretend to be a ballerina and would dance  on classical music after school, before my parents would come home from work. It was my little secret! :)]

Here's to many more Nutcrackers, to attend and to be part of!

Couldn't resist...

the beautiful clear blue skies, the leaves' green slightly sprinkled with Fall yellow, and THIS BEAUTIFUL LITTLE GIRL OF MINE! :)

And then these three having fun at home on Thanksgiving break:

("J.R." on Sweetwater Lane)

:)

(Little Bandit hiding!)

Thankful Tree in the Making

I wrote about this a few posts ago that we were going to make one of these. Here is ours in the making:

and the final product:

We all enjoyed the nice family time spent drawing and contouring the paper leaves, and writing down some of things we were thankful on the front of the leaves. And my heart just leapt with joy (and gratitude) when the first thing Ella wrote as being thankful for, was "God." Mamaie, tataie, and Ella had fun picking up twigs at the park and then sticking the leaves on. We sure piled on a ton of leaves on that tree: so very much to be thankful for!! (Pictures coming of this beautiful home-made masterpiece decorating our Thanksgiving table.)

A quote I came across on one of my friends' facebook page rings true: "Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving." - W. T. Purkiser

Once a climber, always a climber

That's apparently true for rock climbing and Ella. :)
        

After about two months of no rock climbing, she got back right to it last night, as if she had never stopped. All to mamaie's and tataie's "oooh's" and "wow's", and to some cute teenagers' kuddos for speed and agility. As for me, I was one proud momma. :) 

Busy fun days

This is all be a "mother-of-all" post, since we've had some full and fun-filled days and there is not enough time to split them in separate entries.

So first things, first: BALLET

The Nutcracker tech week is in full swing; in fact it started yesterday after church, when we went for the first stage rehearsal. Somebody was very excited, all eyes and ears, focused, but also a bit nervous (before getting up on the stage.)

(My little Cherub is the very first one on the right.)

We are very proud of Ella for working so hard on that stage last night and every single class period that led up to this. All those little Cherubs looked adorable up there and they couldn't be more fit to open the Guardian Angels scene.

Hrishi's Hunting trip:

Hrishi travelled to Omaha for work and he was able to make the tail end of the week into a couple of hunting days with his great friend, Dennis. He got four turkeys (only brought home two) and a 150 lbs buck. Now, that's success right there! He was so excited and so were we, getting all the updates and pictures from the field!!!

He drove over 10 hours yesterday to get back to Dallas, and right after dinner he and my mom cleaned up and cut up around 35 lbs of meat, while dad and I watched and took pictures, and Ella played with the buck's antlers! Now that's some fun family time, wouldn't you agree?? :)

Here are our two talented butchers and their masterpieces: (nice roast pieces, tenderloins, steaks, hamburger cuts, and shanks. YUM!!!) We already have a few local friends whom we'll be sharing the joy! :)

She is the funniest!!

The yield of this hunting trip justified a purchase I've been planning for a long time, a chest freezer. Now I can store meats, vegetables, bread, and whatever else I can freeze to my heart's content. Very happy about that as I am generally a bulk buyer. :)

And since we've been eating a whole lot of turkey lately and now we have a lot of deer, we decided to mix things up a bit this Thanksgiving and instead of turkey, grill some deer tenderloins. We've had that before and is absolutely delish.  

School:

The end of 2nd six weeks' report card came home on Friday, and once again our little student did very well! To spoil her a bit mamaie had scumptious cupcakes waiting for her after school.

Friday they also had their classroom Thanksgiving feast and popsicle party.

Best friends' birthday party: 

To make Friday the best day ever, after school she went to her school best friend's house (Emma) to celebrate her birthday! These girls love each other so much and they are so cute together. You see, aside from their cute bubbly personalities, they share some of the same food allergies and asthma and I guess that helped them bond more. Emma's mom, knowing of Ella's severe food allergies (from Emma), prepared and bought everything with that in mind (dairy free chicken nuggets, rice ice cream -nut and dairy free, home-made dairy-free pumpking muffins with vegan chocolate chips, etc.) I was so impressed with this amazing woman. It is the first time when a friend/parent goes all out of the way to accomodate Ella's food allergies. The mom, one amazing woman, and Emma-a wonderful friend. That really made my day!! The made a pretty frame craft, colored, cut, played games, and roasted marshmallows. Fun galore!

Hard Eight Texas BBQ:

We gave mom and dad a real taste of Texas barbeque and they loved it. On Saturday evening we went out to our favorite BBQ joint and had a feast:



Running shoes:

I've been getting blue/black toes since I've been starting to run longer distances. Not extremely painful but still uncomfortable. One of my FIT group friends, a more experienced runner herself, suggested that it may be the shoe size, too small and asked if I had fitted shoes for comfort and best results. My Bowerman series Nike had been doing the job just fine but not in the running arena but they were not fitted to my foot and running style. So I decided to finally take the leap, find a speciality store, open my wallet (big), and get myself a pair of fitted shoes. And I am so glad I did. My first 5.5 mile run on Friday in my Ghost4 Brooks was seamless. These "guys" are going to take me far! :) They are impeccable!

Otherwise, I'm keeping myself motivated  planning to sign up for my first Warrior Dash event next April. I'm very excited and pumped to start training for that. The training itself won't be much different than what I'm doing now but it'll have a higher purpose and help me stay more motivated and on track.

To help wiht my fear of heights, I'll try rock climbing. And go back to swimming at least once a week.
Exciting times, I'm telling you! :)