Our 4th Thurs-giving

Last Thursday, Jon and I celebrated our 4th Thursgiving. Thursgiving is a tradition we started the first Thanksgiving season we met and we are hoping to continue to celebrate it for many years to come. The Thursday before Thanksgiving we make our own mini Thanksgiving meal and reflect on the previous years blessings. We spend every holiday with my family and things can get crazy with that so we wanted to carve out time to talk about what we are thankful for and why, and what we are looking forward to the next year. We laugh because people go psycho and fuss over cooking a Thanksgiving meal but honestly, we do ours in less than an hour every year. Rotisserie turkey, boxed stuffing, instant rolls, etc. People it's not that hard! This allows us to focus on the meaning behind the celebration rather than stressing over what time to put the pumpkin pie in the oven. I posted about last year's Thursgiving here. 

So this year was extra special. We had company in town up until last Wednesday and are expecting company this evening so my mind was a little fried. I knew Thursgiving was right around the corner but didn't have the time to go to the store and prep everything. Jon sent me this text on his way home from Dallas on Thursday...

A fun treat to make up for a traveling husband is that he always brings home food when he returns. He's gotten good at surprising me with take out from different restaurants so I was trying to think where he was going. The week before he had brought home dinner from one of our first date places (Geno's in Round Rock...GO!) so I didn't have many guesses as to what this romantic like meal could be. And this is what he brought home...

I think I started tearing up when I saw it. Y'all...Jon hates going to the store...hates it with a passion...and this meant SO much to me that he took the time to think of all the sides, go to the store after being on the road al day, and he even cooked the whole thing! What a stud. 

The menu included turkey, gravy, cauliflower whippers, stuffing, green bean casserole, and crescent rolls. 

During dinner I was telling Jon I wished I had the ingredients for pumpkin pie and he slipped into the pantry to grab these mini pies! I am absolutely obsessed with homemade pumpkin pie and these were better than anything I've ever made (or tasted). I think the cream cheese frosting is what did it for me. 

November 1st we started our "Thankful Jar". Each day we wrote on frenchie shaped notecards (so Ernie could be somewhat included) something we are thankful for. We decided to go through them on Thursgiving, knowing that things would be crazy at our real Thanksgiving of 14 people. 

It was an awesome way to relax and catch up with my husband in between house guests and holidays...I am so glad (and lucky) he went all out! We talked about one day doing this with our children, our own little Hart family Thanksgiving.

Do you have any traditions beyond the normal Thanksgiving ones?

and yesterday I posted a few random things I am thankful for *here*