Happy Belated Turducken Day!

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving Lily had a little construction paper feather in her cubby that said "Pammy and Renee are grateful for Lily's wonderful love of music and great dancing ability." It made me grateful she has such wonderful teachers and also made me think about what a truly wonderful life I have. In addition to working at a job I love and coming home to a cozy house, I am blessed with a loving husband, friends and family, the greatest daughter in the world, adorable pups who do their best to behave, plenty of food to eat, a snazzy outfit or two, good health and lots of laughter. Wow.

This year we were especially lucky in that we had not one, but two celebrations. In the morning Chris, Mary, Lily and I trouped over to Pete and Sue's beautiful new townhome and were spoiled by delicious snacks (brie and jam in phylo? oh yeah!) and wine followed by Tom and Katie's that evening for TURDUCKEN! For those not in the know, a Turducken is a deboned chicken inside a deboned duck inside a deboned turkey....with a layer of cornbread stuffing for added yumminess. We got ours, along with crawfish etouffee, from Hebert's Meat in Louisiana. It was worth every single penny.

No post would be complete without a Lilikins-update. Following Pam and Renee's example, I am grateful for:
- her figuring out how to get off the couch safely, swivelling her little body around to ease down feet-first
- her growing vocabulary, which in addition to "uh-oh", "mama", and "dog" now seems to include "that" and "meow"
- her fabulous walking ability....in the past 2 weeks she has gone from tentative shuffles to almost running
- the way she picks herself up and keeps going when she falls on her tooshie
- tiny hands and all the things they can now do...working the sorter box, one-handed sippy cupping, stacking the DVDs, etc
- that we've always been able to catch her before she climbs up the bookshelves and that she is pretty good about following direction when we say "two feet on the ground"
- mad bike skills...although her standing on the seat was a tad alarming
- telephone "talking"
- leg hugs after toddling across the room
- giggles
- and last but never least, love of music and dancing ability