It was not a Southern Living Thanksgiving. We sat around our small kitchen table atop our bare, concrete floor in our unfinished kitchen, eating off of scratched, chipped everyday dishes because our nice china is still packed, pouring tea from a cheap plastic pitcher, and admiring the only Thanksgiving decorations to be found—a pine cone turkey and a paper plate turkey made by Anna. :)

But we had bountiful blessings, including plenty of good food to eat, a warm cozy house, clean water, family, health, the grace of God, and three new friends.

A few weeks ago we decided to invite some international students to have Thanksgiving dinner with us. Did you know that 75% of international students never enter an American home? We have some friends who are part of an outreach to international students here in Conway, and one of the things they do is match students with American families so they can experience a Thanksgiving meal. This year we were honored to have Joanna from China and Ghadeer and Bassam from Saudi Arabia at our  table.

David smoked a turkey and it was delicious! We also had dressing, sweet potatoes, green beans, rolls, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and cranberry-apple pie. Ghadeer brought Basbousa, a traditional Middle Eastern dessert. My mom made about half of the other dishes, so I really didn’t have that much to cook.

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Sarah is 1 month old today! We can’t decide if it seems like it’s been a month or not. On one hand, it seems like she’s been a part of our family for a long time. On the other, it all still seems so new that we really haven’t gotten a grip on things yet!

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Sydney and Sarah checkin’ each other out:

First tub bath:

Settled down for a nap in Mommy’s bathrobe:

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