Thanksgiving 2011

I am behind on a couple of posts, but in an effort to get caught up and be timely with this post, I am going to go ahead with this Thanksgiving post and come back to the other two posts later.

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We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year!  

I am most thankful to have our little family of 3 this year!  It has been so sweet and so fun to be a little family :)  Unfortunately, we did not take a picture of the 3 of us.

One of the best things about being married and having both families in town is that we get to celebrate with two Thanksgiving dinners!  We started out at the Oser's house on Wednesday night with a delicious meal!  I can't believe we didn't get a picture of the family, the beautiful table, or the delicious spread of food.  I had my camera but just forgot!  Annie loved being at JoJo and Grandpa's house and enjoyed talking and cooing during our dinner!

On Thursday, I woke up early to cook a turkey by following Martha Stewart's Turkey 101 again! 

Brad also joined in the cooking.  He worked for hours peeling the hard boiled eggs for deviled eggs.  I am usually a very patient person and the more patient person between the two of us, but peeling eggs that did not want to peel did not bring out a good side in me!  Brad was much more patient and eventually got pretty good at it too!   He also made the filing using his family recipe and they were delicious!!  I told him he earned a permanent job as the deviled egg chef :)

After our cooking was complete, we headed to Mom and Dad's house to meet up with the rest of the family.  

We had 17 people including Annie!  

Mom's tables looked beautiful!  Ii is a lot of work, but I love using all of her china, silver, and crystal!

 Mom's turkey turned out perfectly and was the star of the show!  

It was gorgeous and delicious!  

We feasted on a delicious meal and enjoyed each others company for the rest of the day! 

I sadly forgot to take a group shot here too, but here are a few pictures from the day.

Love this one! 

I love Thanksgiving and think it is my favorite holiday all year!

Annie's Baptism, The Brunch

Following the baptism service, everyone gathered at our house for a celebratory brunch!!

It was a big, joint effort between both families to get everything ready.  Thank you to everyone for your time and for letting me borrow your chairs, tablecloths, plates, silverware, vases, and serving pieces.  I know it was not easy to gather it and pack it all up but we could not have done it without your help!

I was really thrilled with how the setting turned out!  We had 16 guests to seat which worked out perfectly in our space.  It took me a while to come up with it, but I finally had a vision of light and dark fall pinks as my color scheme.  I bought the deep magenta fabric at Joann's and made table runners for each table.   I also bought the pale pink hemstitch cloth napkins from Amazon from the seller, sellnapkins.   They were a great price and I love them!

Also, for the table setting, I wanted to order cross napkin rings but we needed too many and they were quite expensive.  Emily had the idea that we try and make something instead.  So, Brad and I came up with this design using branches from our front bushes.  We hot glued the branches together and then wrapped the white wraphia around the branches to cover the glue.  Thank you Brad for your help!!  I think they turned out great and everyone loved them!  We will definitely get to use them again too!

For the flowers, Emily first found inspiration pictures from the Internet which helped so much.  Next, we went together to Western Supermarket and picked out dark pink roses, orange roses, lilies, and the green berries.  We gathered all of the other greenery including the magnolia leaves and blue berries from around town and my yard.  The light pink roses are also from our knockout rose bushes.  

And, then we just started putting together each arrangement based on what looked best and most like our inspiration pictures!   We used short square vases and lined them with magnolia leaves.

We were very nervous about trying to do the flowers ourselves, but we ended up having a lot of fun doing them.  And, we were very excited with how well they turned out!  They were gorgeous!

The food turned out very well also and once again everyone pitched in to help make it a delicious menu!  We served egg casserole, hash brown casserole, biscuits, cinnamon rolls, deviled eggs, fresh fruit, ham and rolls, asparagus salad, coffee, orange juice, and tea.  For dessert - carrot cake and white chocolate cheesecake with warm blueberries!  

Mom printed a picture of Annie that said "Welcome to my party!" So cute!

Mom used chopped pecans to make the cross on the carrot cake!  It was perfect!

Thank you to Joanne for the Honey Baked ham, rolls, asparagus salad, and deviled eggs!  Thank you to Nicole for the hash brown casserole - it was a huge hit!  Thank you to Emily for making the two egg casseroles and the amazing blueberry cheesecake!  And, thank you to Mama for the fruit salad and making the beautiful carrot cake!

On the day of the brunch, we all helped to get the food hot and ready to eat and visited!  I am not much of a hostess anyways and this was my first party to host as a Mom.  I quickly realized that it is hard to be the hostess of the party as well as the mama to the baby.  Thank you to everyone for helping me get things ready!  

Lynlee played and then ate her lunch!  She is such a good, happy baby!

The Grandfathers!

Annie was still the star of the show and we all enjoyed talking to her and playing with her!  

She looked so pretty in her dress!

Finally, the food was ready and Brad led us in a beautiful prayer!

We finished off the celebration with some sweet gifts for Annie!  Her Godparents gave her a beautiful silver and pearl bracelet with a tiny cross on it!

Aunt Emmie gave her the Jesus Storybook Bible!  It is excellent and we have loved reading it!

Aunt Nicole and Uncle Taylor gave her the silver rattle with her name monogrammed on it and JoJo and Grandpa gave her the silver spoon with her initials and the silver music box cross!  They are beautiful!

Thank you again to all of our family and Wes, Sabrina, and Lynlee for joining us in the celebration of Annie's baptism!  We had a wonderful day and are so thankful to God for his love and his gift of such wonderful family and friends!

Only one more post on the baptism to come, I promise!  

It is just pictures of all of us with Annie in her gown!

Annie's Baptism, The Ceremony

On Sunday, November 6th, Annie was baptized at 3 months of age in a public ceremony at our church!   There were a total of 9 babies being baptized so it made for a very special celebration!

First, in preparation for the baptism, we read the book What Christian Parents Should Know About Infant Baptism by John P. Sartelle that the church sent.  The book was an excellent explanation of God's new covenant of baptism that replaced the old covenant of circumcision.   It also explained God's amazing grace that allows the faith of Annie's parents to be counted as faith for her as well as that Annie does not have to do anything to be loved by God!

I loved this quote from the beginning of the Jesus Storybook Bible:

"'Tis not that I did choose Thee,
For Lord, that could not be;
This heart would still refuse Thee,
Hadst Thou not chosen me...

My heart owns non before Thee,
For Thy rich grace I thirst;
This knowing, if I love Thee,
Thou must have loved me first."
Josiah Conder, 1836

We also chose a priest to baptize Annie as well as Godparents for her.   We chose Cannon Joe Gibbes to baptize Annie since Brad has gotten to be very close to him through the men's ministry and men's hikes that they have done together.   He has been a great leader, friend, and mentor to Brad and we are so thankful for him!

Annie, Eleanor, Brad, & Cannon Gibbes

We chose Wes and Sabrina Franks to be Annie's Godparents!  Wes and Brad have been best friends since 10th grade and Sabrina has become a great friend to me over the last 10 years since I met each of them!  We love you Wes, Sabrina, and Lynlee and are so thankful for your friendship and love and support.

Our church does a wonderful job of making the service of Holy Baptism a big deal and a happy celebration.  A church guild makes felt banners for each baby that the daddies process in with at the beginning of the service.

Then, each baby is individually baptized in front of the church.   Annie did great and even smiled a huge, sweet smile when Cannon Gibbes sealed her with the Holy Spirit!  So sweet!

Afterwards,  all the daddies take their children and walk him or her up and down the aisle.  The children's choir sang "Welcome to the Family of God" during the procession.  It was such a sweet song and happy ceremony.

Along with Annie's Godparents, her entire extended family came to witness her baptism!  We are so thankful for such loving, supportive, and involved grandparents and aunts and uncles!

All of us!

Oser Family

Brad, Eleanor, Annie, Grandpa and JoJo

Jones Family

Annie wore the same gown that I wore when I was baptized at the same church!  My Mom and my grandmother also wore the same dress!  The dress was originally hand sewn by my grandmother, Grandmommy's Godmother.  It is beautiful with gorgeous hand stitching and lace.


As a gift to Annie, Mom and Dad bought her beauty pins for her dress!  Mom sent me an email explaining that when baby clothes where hand made, they were often made without buttons so they could be pinned and adjusted to fit.  So began the "beauty pin."  They can be found on line and in specialty stores. Don't confuse them with diaper pins, beauty pins are very small.  Annie's are gold with pearls and the top pin had a small cross on it!  Gorgeous!

After the service, we all gathered at our house for a brunch!
Pictures and details to come in the next post.