The Adventures of Jason and Melissa: Thankful

This past Thanksgiving (the best holiday of the year as previously explained in this blog) was a wonderful opportunity to count all the blessings in our life. We are thankful for wonderful parents who have given us a solid foundation and taught us the value of family and love. We are thankful for our siblings, without whose love and support we would not be who we are. We are thankful for having great friends near and far who have laughed with us in the good times and who have been there to love and support us in the hard times. Most of all this year, we are thankful for the greatest blessing of all - our Emma. God has blessed us with a healthy and happy baby and we couldn't be happier. :)

Emma is taking on the newest craze - Planking.

Since we have a busy upcoming December travel schedule, we decided it would be nice to stick around Minneapolis this year and host Thanksgiving. We convinced Melissa's family to make the drive up for the weekend. (I don't think it took much arm twisting, perhaps none at all.) They love to come and visit to get their Emma fix and we love it when they come. Melissa's mom, dad, and grandmother all came up for Thanksgiving and stayed until Saturday. We were small in numbers for the dinner but that didn't stop us from having a big feast! We had the turkey, the stuffing,mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, green beans, sweet potatoes, and of course some apple pie to top it off.

We broke out the fine china to spruce up the table a little but the fancy place settings were outshone by Emma's artwork and table decor. She was busy this week at day care making our centerpiece.

After lots of football and food on Thursday, Melissa's sister Megan came up with her husband Kevin and their daughter Ella. They needed their Emma fix as well. They say that they're happy to see Melissa and I, which I'm sure they are, but lets be honest ... Emma is the main attraction. Between Grandma and Grandpa and Auntie Megan, Emma never touched the floor. While Meg et al. were in town, we decided it would be fun to take Emma to her first Hollidazzle parade. For those of you who aren't familiar, this is a nightly parade in downtown Minneapolis, starting the day after Thanksgiving and ending on Christmas Eve. The Hollidazzle has the same lighted floats every night; every year. I think Emma was very impressed!

So, you may have noticed that nasty looking thing on my upper lip. You may be surprised to find out that its a moustache, and maybe even more surprised to find out that its intentional. You see, there is a fundraising movement dubbed Movember to raise funds and awareness for cancers effecting men. I decided that it would be a worthy enough cause to take my first stab at substantial facial hair. Let's just say it looked as awkward as it felt. If you would like to get involved and pledge/donate money to this cause please visit http://mobro.co/jasonburgart. For those of you who are demanding photographic evidence of my cookie duster, well; here you go.

Sunday was my birthday, so as a gift to myself Movember ended early and I shaved the sucker off. It was good to have my upper lip back. That wasn't the only excitement of the day however. Melissa always does a wonderful job of making birthdays a very special day. As part of the day's events we met up with our friends Pete, Ana, Phil and Kelsey and went to a tree farm to hunt for, and cut down, our Christmas tree! We bundled up Emma and brought her along - she had a blast and I think really enjoyed the fresh air. We all found our perfect trees and headed back home. The rest of the evening was spent with fire in the fireplace, a homemade birthday dinner, and homemade German chocolate birthday cake! It was a wonderful day. Oh, and I opened presents from Melissa and Emma. Emma is quite the shopper and got me a precious Story People print that reads, "For a long time, there were only your footprints and laughter in our dreams and even from such small things, we knew we could not wait to love you forever." So perfect and so true, thanks Emma. :)