"Best of all is it to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song." --Konrad von Gesner--

I was a bit sad last week that I wasn't able to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with any of my family (LOVE and miss you all SOOOO much!!!) but overall it was still a wonderful holiday! I enjoyed spending the time home with my little family and really enjoyed spending Thanksgiving day with my "military family" the Korpi's! :) We feel so blessed to have shared our military journey with them for the past 3 years or so. They are a wonderful family and we love them a lot! :) 

Anyway, we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. It all turned out really yummy. I had a bit of fun making it too :) I turned to my favorite cooks, Our Best Bites ( I recently got their newest cook book which had quite a few Thanksgiving recipes in it), and tried out their Turkey brining recipe, their sweet potato recipe, their green bean casserole recipe, which used fresh green beans and it was so yummy! I also made their roll recipe, which I've made many times and it's also super yummy :) My "crowning glory" though was my super amazing and delicious pumpkin cheesecake which seriously was PERFECT! I haven't made a cheesecake in so long but love this one and was excited to make it again and was so glad it turned out so well! No crack, cooked perfectly, the crust was so yummy, and it was pumpkin so of course it was delicious! :) Sorry for my enthusiasm over a cheesecake but it really was the best one I've made so I was pretty proud of it :) Amazing to the last bite!

So for the rest of the holiday I did a little Black Friday shopping and then we went to get our Christmas tree! We found a tree farm a few miles away from the base, picked out a pretty tree, went home and decorated it! I was excited to finally decorate! I really love having a tree in the house, it's just so warm and inviting and happy and I love sitting in the living room at night with just it's light on. :)

Some other holiday decorations included a felt Christmas tree I made for Evelyn, our advent calendar that I made last year, a beautiful tree wall hanging that my Grandma Fredrick made, my nativity, and my awesome stocking holder that I made! I bought some letters for the NOEL, covered them in some pretty holiday paper, attached the letters to a base that had the stocking holders. :) then I placed it on my faux mantel shelf and wa-la! I really love hour it turned out and love my stockings on it :) 

I did start to decorate the front porch a little bit but ran out of lights so I have to get those before I show that. Nothing too fancy though but it's fun to have a little bit of lights outside! :)

Our next holiday goodness is our Elf! We got an Elf on the Shelf this year and I'm excited for the fun we're going to have with it! Our Elf arrived on Saturday and Evelyn named her Tinker Bell. Here's what she's been up to so far.

(I did have another Elf pic but haven't downloaded it so I'll post it later :)

Lastly for some holiday cuteness! :) I have been wanting to take some pictures with holiday lights in the background and I finally did it! I took a few pics of my cute kiddos and absolutely love them.