Thanksgiving 2012

Happy Thanksgiving! I know, we're fashionably late, as usual!

This year has been an incredible year of Thanksgiving!
Each year I am so encouraged to look back upon the events of the year to see how the Lord has shown His Sovereign faithfulness so clearly! Events which, at the time hurt, I now see have reaped glory for God and advanced His kingdom in the hearts of those involved.
 Through these times in life, when we have ups, downs and twists around; the Lord is faithful to hear us when we cry out to Him. And at times, that's the very purpose behind God's Sovereign orchestration of events, is to cause us to cry to Him for "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force." (Matthew 11:12) The Lord wants to see us, in a broken and contrite spirit of humble reverence, storming the mercy seat. It is when we do, that we see He is indeed, working every little detail together for the good of those who love Him and for His greatest glory. Though it may seem that, such and such an action was merely human intervention, God rules over the hearts of men and is guiding even that, seemingly incidental, event, action, (whatever it may be in your life) for your truest good and His greatest glory. Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you. (James 4:8)

John MacDuff describes the joy of our hearts in this year of Thanksgiving, in the quote below:

"Children of God... will you not bear witness, that, through all your trials and troubles, the faithfulness of your Savior's love has been the “very joy of your hearts?” You have had many crosses and losses – has He ever deserted you? You have been in severe afflictions, and have seen the flowers of many a “sweet hope” wither and decay – did your Friend desert you then? Others may have proved faithless – all other help may have failed you – friendship’s help, promised help, expected help – all, all may have been but as the foam upon the billow, as the footsteps in the sand – but, has Christ ever failed you? Could you, in the darkest and the saddest hour of your grief, say to Him? “Lord, You have promised what You did not perform.” Will you not bear witness concerning the past? – “Not one good thing has failed, of all that the Lord has promised – all has come to pass.” ~John MacDuff  

"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another." ~ Job 19:25-27
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Wednesday, the designated day of preparation.

To quote the blog post of 2011:  "Every year we have the same tradition of listening to A Christmas Carol while we prepare Thanksgiving dinner!" 
And this year was no exception! In the pictures below we have Radio Theater's dramatized "A Christmas Carol" playing as we go about our preparations.

By the time the camera was taken out, the turkey had already been prepped and was being carried out by our strong little man, to be stored in the garage which would serve as a refrigerator until the next day.

Felicity is making the peanut butter cookies, a longstanding favorite in the Mello family!

Stephanie is preparing mini pumpkin cheesecakes

Hannah cut up the squash  and pumpkin for butternut squash soup.

Chariti's checking the oven for the spiced pumpkin seeds, a special favorite of hers; which, she was rather excited to have the privilege of being chiefly responsible for.

Hannah, peeling, dicing, etc.

Momma and her boy
Seth is crushing gingersnap cookies to be used as crusts for Stephanie's cheesecakes.

♥
Seth loves his Stephanie

"Your Highness, forgive me if I've gone amiss but I must report the case of the stolen kiss!"
LoL! (Lots of Love) :)

It's so precious to see the little people grow up and finally be able to handle certain responsibilities on their own.

Seth is finally old enough to be given smaller responsibilities, such as the above, scooping pumpkin cheesecake batter into the pan.

He did a very good job! ♥



Thanksgiving Day!

Heating up last minute dishes, the day we had been preparing for has arrived!

Momma and Tabitha

The cheerful hearts gather round and the feast commences!

The Lord is so good in giving us the blessing of family!

After spending some family time together we headed out to have dessert and finish celebrating Thanksgiving at my Mom's brother, T-Mario's house.  On the way we saw this beautiful sunset reflecting its, blue, orange and pink colors off the water. The picture hardly does justice to the original, however this is the best that could be done without a tripod.

Taking some pictures of our little cowboy near the beach.

♥

At T-Mario's house we sat and enjoyed catching up with T-Maggie and her friend Dan,



Auntie Sue, with her adorable little guy Logenne, and Auntie Flo.



In which we discussed Ron Paul and liberalism.


Stephanie with Uncle Mario
Stephanie's always special to her Aunts and Uncles ♥
I think it's because they were still young people themselves when she was born.



T-Jeff, having fun with the little people and causing them to erupt in giggles! (This picture doesn't quite do justice to the laughter that followed. :) )


So this was our Thanksgiving Day! We really enjoyed spending time with our dear Aunts, Uncles and Cousins!
♥