The oven has been on for most of the day, and the house is growing warm on this late-November evening.

It must mean one thing. Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

Friends, I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. Sometimes we run a turkey trot, but this year we are staying close to home. It sounds perfectly lovely.

Today and tomorrow, I plan to cook several dishes ahead of time. I use Farmhouse on Boone’s Thanksgiving from Scratch recipes for the bulk of what I cook. Wednesday will be my cleaning day. It will be so nice to have our home nice and clean for the end of the week. Rusty just spruced up our landscaping by adding pine straw to the area, and he touched up the paint on our front door and kitchen cabinets after I scrubbed them down. We make a great team!

We are taking this week off of school, which is nice, too. I’ve been working on Joyfully Made Hair Bow orders, which is always fun. I’ve also added bow ornaments to my shop, and I made a few for a customer this week.

I hope my children always remember the fun, love, and laughter that surrounds our home this week. We officially named some of our animal ornaments, and added lots of animal friends underneath our nature tree. We’ve played and exercised together. We had a movie night last night, which was loads of fun, too.

This is such a full season of life, and I want to remember each and every drop of it.

Life is a gift. A beautiful, amazing, gift.

I’m going to try to remember this as Thanksgiving nears, because there is bound to be something that doesn’t go according to plan. This is okay, though. I’ve learned that it’s best to embrace the unexpected, and to roll with whatever comes my way. But overall, I think it’s going to be great.

I get to spend the day with my favorite people in the world. What could be better?

Now I must go and help my children prepare for bed. Storms are in the forecast this evening, which sounds just about perfect. I love a good thunderstorm.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving if you celebrate it. Thank you so much for stopping by today.