I'm Thankful for ... The Dance

I love Thanksgiving! What a wonderful idea for a holiday ... to take time out of our busy lives to just express gratitude for the things that are important, for the blessings in our lives. I have so many things to be grateful for this year. Heavenly Father has been very good to us this year in so many ways. It would take a whole month full of blog posts to explain them all, and to be honest, some of them are the types of blessings that cannot be easily explained to those who are not familiar with the struggles and triumphs of our everyday life. They are not blessings that would make the news or cause the multitudes to gasp in awe at the wonder of the blessing. They are just those little things that happen in our lives to let us know that Heavenly Father is ultimately in charge. And I'm grateful for all of those blessings.

I thought about doing a post where I just listed all the things I'm grateful for, but I thought I'd do a little differently today and just talk about one event of this Thanksgiving day that touched me. So here goes:

One of the things I love about Thanksgiving is getting to cook a fabulous and gigantic meal for my family. I only do this three times a year -- Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. So I try to make it count. It is a multi-day event that involves precise planning and scheduling. After all these years I still don't have things down exactly right, but I'm getting better each year. Well, today was the big event, so I needed to wake up early to get the turkey in our oven early enough so that everything else would be able to get done on time. Of course,  I ended up waking up a bit later than I would have liked, so already I was behind schedule. No problem. We always end up eating a super late lunch on Thanksgiving, so the kids know just how to stagger their snacking throughout the day to make sure they don't starve ... but also not to snack too much so that they have room for the feast. 

I know there are some people out there who manage to cook a huge feast and keep their kitchens relatively clean at the same time. They manage to do all of this while looking fabulous at the same time.

Like this!

Well, I'm not that sort of holiday cook. My kitchen could be certified as a disaster area. I am in my pajamas with hair sticking up in all directions. The floor is covered in assorted samples of goo and the counters are non-existent, every area covered with all sorts of things, food, trash, pots, pans ... my dignity. If the health department showed up, I'm afraid that my kitchen would probably get a scary rating.

Oh no!

(On a side note, we ate at a restaurant once in Louisiana which had a really low rating, and it was some of the best food we ever ate. Weird.)

Well, this morning I was in the middle of this gigantic mess, thinking about how behind I was with my Thanksgiving feast preparation. I had my hands elbow deep in dough, wishing that I was coordinated enough to stir with both hands and both feet so that I could maybe work on four dishes at once. We were listening to the Michael Buble Christmas album. Although Laney would love to listen to Christmas music all year long, I insist that we wait until Thanksgiving to play it, so today was the lucky day to add the new playlist. Well, that Michael Buble can sing. His voice is like butter.

Like butter.

Well, I was in the middle of complete chaos in my kitchen, bobbing my head to the music, when JoJo came in to see what I was doing. All of the sudden he turned to me and said:

"Mama, Will you dance with me?"

Awwwwww! How could I refuse? We might end up eating our lunch a bit later. My schedule might be completely blown. But I needed to dance with my baby boy. (After all, my master plan is to groom him to become a little Michael Buble ... or maybe Enjolras from Les Miserables. He's got to get his music groove going.)

He is such a sweet little dancer. He gets a tiny little smile on his face, like he has some sort of secret that he is keeping. And he just looks so completely happy. It was a moment ... and I sometimes get so caught up in flying through life that I forget to take time to appreciate the moments. They matter. Family matters. This dance mattered. 

So today I am grateful for my little boy and our dance. It pulled me from the hectic cooking events of the day and brought me to my own little spot of heaven on earth. I am so grateful this day for the wonderful family I was born into and the wonderful family I created. They are so good to me, and they constantly remind me of what truly matters on this earth.

Well ... I finished my feast. Herman said it was the best one yet. And the kitchen is even clean. Bonus! But the best thing of all? When I was cleaning up after everything was over I went to flip on the lights in the kitchen and found this note that JoJo glued (yikes!) to the wall under the light switch. 

Life is good! Happy Thanksgiving!