Gratitude

There is so much to be thankful for this year. We are healthy, happy, surrounded by family, and finding our way out of some of the difficulties we've faced over the last few years. Of course the reason I'm most thankful is that we have Leo with us this year.

Oh, how I'm grateful for baby toes...


We had a great day. Jb's family joined my family for dinner so we could all celebrate together. I think that alone is a pretty significant thing to be grateful for. Many people have to choose between their families on holidays, but we are fortunate enough to be able to celebrate as one big family. Aunt Fanny and Uncle Jared were missing from our immediate families - and we missed them a lot, but I'm pretty impressed that we got five Burgans, five Teleps, and one tiny Burgan-Telep gathered for a meal.

The day began with cooking and cleaning. Leo helped by hanging out in the Ergo while I helped tidy and set up our tables. The dining room isn't quite large enough to accommodate our group, so we cleared out the family room so we could fit comfortably.



I think it turned out really nicely.

We started the meal off with dezerbeds - a Burgan family tradition. "Dezerbeds" is (as the story goes) how jb spelled hors d'oeuvres as a child and she and her brothers would create elaborate finger food creations for the adults to sample.

I need to work on my game face for some of the interesting combinations - like the apple and pepperoni...

Luckily, I've got some time to work on it - Leo is still up and coming, and the next youngest of our families are already pretty adult. The youngest Telep, the yougest Burgan and the youngest Burgan-Telep:

The youngest girl and the youngest boy:

Even though, Leo can't make dezerbeds yet, jb made sure that Leo wasn't left out of the festivities. Jb created a feast of harvest fruits and veggies - all of which were on the grown-up table also.


He didn't eat too much at the table - but afterwards he gave it a good go. He especially loved the pear!

We took the opportunity to take pictures of the families - in retrospect I wish we would have gotten one with everyone in it - but by this time Leo was pushing bedtime and I'm glad we were able to capture what we did.








Happy Thanksgiving!