🦃Gobble Gobble🦃

Wow! Thanksgiving came and went already! It's been quite the month, thus far and again I say...I'm not trying to wish time away, but 2020 certainly is a year I can't wait to get through! 

Here at the Shroyer house, we have decided to do our best to live "through the chaos" the best we can! November, is month of remembering to be "thankful" and "grateful" on a daily basis and this year, it was so important to purposely remind ourselves just how blessed we truly are! 

During the month, leading up to Thanksgiving, our only tradition is to add a leaf each day to our Thankful Tree. We have been doing this before Ethan could even write his own leaf. It is so important to me, for both my boys, to express their thankfulness and it was so neat to see & hear what their leaf would be each day. I asked Ethan, now that he's 13, if it bugged him that his mom has all these crazy things throughout the year that we do and he let me know that he loves them and enjoys each season, due to, the traditions we do. That warmed my mama heart, b/c I know one day I'll look back on these things, these leaves particularly, and smile. Yes, I keep them and they go into our yearly memory jar and each New Years Eve, we look back on them with the rest of our memories of the year.

This year, Thanksgiving was different! We chose, due to Ohio COVID cases skyrocketing and the Governor asking folks to please celebrate small, we stayed home and had our own little celebration here. Yes, it wasn't what I wanted, b/c I love celebrating with our extended families, but I just felt in my heart that we had to do our part. We're not afraid of COVID, I mean it's a virus with a 97% survival rate for most, yet I just knew that being part of the solution is far greater than complaining about things. I mean we're celebrating Thanksgiving after all! The holiday that embraces gratitude and what else is there to be thankful for than our health, family, and togetherness! 

Although, it was different and all things considered, our Thanksgiving truly was a great day! We just were home being lazy, cooking, watching movies, and calling family to be a part of our day together. Brenton rocked our dinner and my dad made us his traditional dressing that I used to help him make as a little girl to complete our dinner spread. Brenton loves to cook and his very first turkey was amazing! We tag teamed the overall meal and when I got nervous about getting everything done, my sweet hubby calmed my nerves and pulled off a wonderful, traditional Thanksgiving meal for us. I love that man so much! He's definitely the Ying to my Yang! 😊🦃🧡

my dad made us plenty of dressing

Mom's gift to us 

"turkey" treats to my guys

Our breakfast tradition

our Thankful Tree

naps are crucial

1st Turkey

my new dishes for the holiday

gotta have festive cookies

turkey coma

Brenton did good

Happy Thanksgiving from us to you

Halloween 2020

Hard to believe, but Halloween was this past weekend! I'm not complaining, seeing where 2020 is at the current moment, but this year is truly flying by! I'm so ready to say goodbye to this year, but I also know I can't wish time away either. So, we are making the most of it! It is just such a weird time! 

We love Halloween, but this year was just different. The excitement wasn't there and with another recent COVID outbreak the fun of it was just completely sucked out of it...at least, for me! The boys had a little fun at school, again different w/ no costumes, but atleast they were allowed to do something I guess! Colin was asked to wear orange & black and Ethan decided to dress up with his friends as colors. He chose lime green. I mean seriously...lime green! He couldn't of chosen red, blue, or maybe orange? No, lime green! It's fricken October, there is no lime green anything in the stores right now! It was a task, but we got it figured out the best we good and yes, it included dye! They had a fun day and then Ethan ended up having his best buddy over Saturday for actual Halloween, so they walked downtown to experience the festivities. There was a new haunted house that was put up for the evening and I heard that was really neat. The town tried to make the most it and overall my big boys were happy, so that's what mattered. Brenton tagged along and then made it back home in time for the OSU/Penn State game. Overall, it was a good night, but just different! Colin didn't want to trick-or-treat and I didn't force that. After him telling me, "no" like 5 times straight, I knew he didn't have any interest, so we got in our comfy clothes, he enjoyed his pumpkin bucket we made for him with all his favorites and the 2 of us just stayed home! The highlight of the night...The Buckeyes pulled off a win and thank goodness for that, lol!