Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
We are currently at my parent's celebrating the holiday in their newly remodeled kitchen. We all got to eat a turkey that was cooked in a convection oven. It was pretty and tasty! I had to make sure we got the turkey in the picture before it got carved:


I am thankful for:

my relationship with God
my husband
my healthy sons
the time I am spending with my family
financial comfort
a life that is usually easy

I have so much to be thankful for at this time. I know my list of things to be thankful for is pretty cliche. But, I say those things with passion behind the words. I am not saying it because it sounds like something you should say.

I had to take picture of my angel trumpeter before we left our house. The hurricane taught me how to prune the trumpeter to get a healthy bloom like this one. I think there must be 150 flowers on it right now.



We have had a really nice, relaxing visit at my parents house. There have been many great moments. So far my favorite moment has been talking to my cousin Shannon on the phone.
Shannon gave birth to her first child, Hannah Jane on September 11th, the day we were evacuating for the hurricane. Shannon knew from prenatal ultrasounds that Hannah had what I am going to call "brain stuff." Hannah is now about 11 weeks old and has already been through two brain surgeries and a stem cell treatment. She has had a tumor removed and shunts placed in to drain ventricle swelling. They are living a parent's worst nightmare. Hannah Jane keeps pulling through. Here is a picture of Hannah Jane after her last surgery this past week:

To have the surgery, they had to shave her hair. She has thick, thick dark hair that had already regrown from the first surgery.

I have not talked to my cousin in a long time. I knew her story, but the phone call was really good. She and her husband have really strengthened their relationship with God throughout this time in their lives. In the phone conversation, Shannon and her husband Rod kept praising God for how much Hannah Jane had pulled through. They kept thanking everyone for their prayers. And then they took that understanding of God's power further. I feel you have to be firmly holding God's hand to recognize that God is working in your life AND in the neurosurgeon's life. They can see that God is giving Hannah to the neurosurgeon who is having a hard time with the other pediatric patients he is working with, but gets to feel success with Hannah.
Throughout the conversation with Shannon, I realized that I could be looking for more to do in my Moms community at church. Shannon and Rod are being supported by their church with a small congregation. They have a website run by lotsa hands, or something, that organizes who is helping and when. It keeps everyone up to date so people know how to help. For example, right now they are not allowing guests in the house trying to be as sterile as possible because of the recent surgery, so people are leaving meals at the door. I wonder if my friends that have gone through leukemia treatments with their child in my church Mom's group had this kind of support from the church, or if they got lost because we are a big church and everyone (me) assumes someone else is taking care of it.
I enjoy that my cousin and I share the same love for contemporary Christian music.
Happy first Thanksgiving Hannah, I hope you have many more.