Thanksgiving rolled around just two days after we were home from Poland. We had several kind invitations for dinner from family and friends but I declined since I had not idea how well our kids would be doing. It is much easier to manage toddler meltdown in one's own home. I am very glad we stayed home, our kids were extremely spent. My mom had ordered a lovely 17 pound fresh turkey before she made plans to visit my sister and brother's families in Chicago over the holiday. We had a lot of turkey for the four of us. Brian used a new Cook Illustrated method that turned out very delicious (super crispy skin, as you may note above). We also loved our Thanksgiving leftovers. On Sunday Brian made a turkey soup with Italian inspired herbs and I made sweet potato gnocchi. It was lovely lovely.

Just one traditional pumpkin pie, well not totally traditional since it was the Cooks recipe and not just the recipe on the can of pumpkin that I was going to make. My family has always made a pumpkin chiffon with a ginger snap crust but we forgot to buy the ginger snaps and Brian loves an excuse to make a pie crust. (He does have it down I must say. Serious crust.)

We enjoyed an excuse to get out a lot of our new pottery. Brian painstakingly carried all the pottery on the airplane and through the Paris airport and JFK for miles and miles. This was no small feat because we got eight place settings with square plates, small plates, bubble mugs, and bowls and a variety of serving pieces. We purchased two new carry on suitcases to meet our intense pottery needs. I am very grateful for a husband who understand my love of beautiful pottery and then carries it through multiple airports. Everything made it home in one piece!

The face of toddler jet lag, and in Jane's case, not having her face wiped after Thanksgiving. She seems to think face wiping is child abuse. The red eyes, the blank look, the 4am wake up, it was so sad! Thankfully we are basically back to normal now.

We do have many reasons to be thankful. Brian and I were asked to speak on gratitude at our Church's meeting before we left Warsaw. (We are very lucky to be able to find our Church everywhere we go as we travel. It is like having a piece of home with us as we travel, and an instant safety net. We have met some amazing people and made some great friends along the way.) It was a good experience for us to meditate on how we have been really amazingly blessed in so many ways. I had intended to type out the notes from our talks but am not sure if I can find them now. I was very tearful expressing my gratitude the day I spoke in Church. The teariness continued later that day when Brian had found Superman for Colin to watch on Netflix. When Superman saved Lois from the helicopter I cried.