Turkey Day

What a fun day and a great way to celebrate Thanksgiving. We got together with two other families that, like us, had no other extended family to get together with. We ended up with 6 adults, 8 "big" kids(ranging in age from 1 1/2-6), one in a highchair and one in her momma's arms. It was crazy busy, but so much fun to combine together. We started out our day with Paul playing in our ward "turkey bowl" at a local park. Then we rushed home and cooked and cleaned up all the rest of the morning. Three o'clock rolled around, the turkey came out of the oven, and friends showed up. All of the sudden, we had GOBS of food and not enough room to put it all. Brooke had the brilliant idea to bring butcher paper to line the kids tables with. The kids thought it was SO cool that they could color on the table and not get in trouble. And it allowed us a little bit more time to eat....sort of. Kids eat fast and are on to the next thing. We ended up putting on a cartoon, so the adults could enjoy their feast too. Everyone left a little before 8 o'clock, Paul got the kids to bed and I literally fell onto the bed and crashed for almost two hours. I know...pathetic. Paul cleaned up the whole kitchen without me. What a man I have!!!! 10 o'clock rolled around, I pulled myself out of bed, put on some more comfortable clothes and woke up a bit. 11 o'clock, Becky knocks at my door and it's time to head out with Brooke to Toy's R Us for some midnight black Friday shopping. The lines were INCREDIBLY LONG, it was cold and I was SO tired, but something about being with friends made it all okay! We laughed about how stupid we were for even being there, and wished we had all dressed a little bit warmer. By 12:20 we made it into the store and proceeded to fight the crowds, all in the name of "saving". I actually did get some good deals, mostly for Brandon. By 3 am we all got home to get some rest (some, more than others, as I think Becky went to Target at 5 and Brooke headed to JoAnn's at 7). I slept until 9:30 and then showered and headed out again. All in all, it was a fabulous day! I just love Thanksgiving. Such a wonderful time to remember all the many big and small blessings I have, which are many. Gobble gobble!

Paul and Ashlyn playing a little bball while waiting for dinner to get ready.

Jason showing the kids how it's done.

The table setting. You'd hardly be able to tell the plates were plastic. Gotta hand it to Costco.

The spread of yumminess!

Chillin' on the couch watching a Christmas cartoon after dinner.

Brooke was the only one that smiled when I told her to. Good girl Brooke. hahaha....

Thanksgiving at Dreamworks

We're so lucky to get to go and visit Daddy at work from time to time. Dreamworks has definitely cut back on the "Family Friday" lunches, but they still do have them on holidays and then randomly throughout the year. This past Friday we got lucky and Ashlyn was out of school, so she got to come too. They had a big Thanksgiving feast complete with Turkey, stuffing, and all the trimmings. It was yummy! It got me all excited for this Thursday to come. I love Thanksgiving anyway. It's one of my favorite holidays (as it is for most people I know). But still. It's a great time to remember all the many many blessings we have been given. Here are some photos from our walk around campus after we ate a big ole yummy lunch! These were all just taken on my phone since I forgot my camera at home, but I think the last one with Paul and the kids came out great. If you look closely, I bet you can guess what is in Brandon's little hand. hehe....that funny little guy! I'm gonna get him a big old basket of balls for Christmas.

My Day

Everyday Paul gets home and asks me how my day went. I pretty much always say the same thing....busy. And it's true. Kind of. Because I am usually busy, but I often get to do fun things. Like today for example. It was field trip day for Leah's preschool. This month's theme is Transportation, so we went to Travel Town. I call my cousin on the 30 minute drive down there. She just had a new baby. She tells me her sister is pregnant. And then she tells me she'd be ecstatic if she were pregnant again in the next six months. All I'm thinking is about my doctor's visit yesterday when I asked for some stronger birth control (ha). I missed my exit because I was on the phone, but I turn around pretty easily and manage to only be 10 minutes late to meet up with my preschool mommy friends. Travel town was fun. We walked around, ate lunch, rode the train. Leah and Brandon fall asleep on the drive home. Brandon's nap is now shot. Oh well. I guess it doesn't matter because about 15 minutes after getting home, my friend drops off her three kids so she can run back to school for parent/teacher conferences. The kids run around for a little over a hour. The house is crazy. I keep a pretty close eye on them and pick up the house as much as I can. But somebody inevitably ends up hurt or upset for one reason or another. After my friend picks up her kids, I head over to the park to hang out with some different friends (I know what you're thinking. My days aren't always filled with nonstop friends.) We let the kids run around and play until it's almost dark. I take my friend home. It's five o'clock and a new cupcake shop is opening in town. It's owned by a friend of mine, so OF COURSE I had to be there to "support" her (and get some delicious cupcakes). My brother texts me and asks me to run over to his house and feed his dog and bring him inside. I do that real quick. The kids are hungry, so we end up at....bleck.....McDonald's. My mom calls me while I'm in the drive thru line. I tell her where I am. She preaches to me about how awful that place is for you. I told her I don't ever order anything for myself. She's talking about the kids of course. I know that, but I had to be a stinker back to her. Why couldn't she have called me yesterday as I was making homemade lasagna with salad and fruit? The kids eat and we head over for the Grand Opening. The former mayor of our town is there to present my friend with a plaque. She cuts the ribbon and the doors open. I am THIRD in line. Score one for me! I get home with a dozen yummy cupcakes (of which there are only 4 left. Hey, we're a family of five. Don't judge.) Paul gets home, eats dinner(of leftover lasagna I might add), changes and heads out to a meeting for church. I bathe the kids and get them to bed....only 15 minutes late. Ashlyn doesn't have school tomorrow. I'm babysitting for a couple of hours in the morning and then heading to Paul's work for a "Dreamworks Thanksgiving feast" lunch. And so here I am, sitting at the computer at 9 o'clock at night, blogging. For posterities sake. That's what I tell myself anyway. I think I'm gonna go finish that necklace I've been working on since I got back from Iowa. Once I get it done, I'll have finished....wait for it.....one, since returning from our trip almost two months ago. It was a good day. I can't complain. I have a good life. I love my kids. I love being home with them. And I was just joking about the stronger birth control.....kind of....gotta keep 'em guessing right?

Progress

I'm not sure how I feel about this. When we moved up to this valley, almost 3 years ago, this exit was my favorite one. Why? Because it reminded me of a small town and made me feel like I really didn't live in busy LA anymore. You could only turn one way off of it. It had no traffic lights, or street lights. Just a stop sign. There were no stores around and it was quiet.

Well, as you can see, things have changed. They put in a road which leads to a huge shopping strip mall. They changed all the lanes up and added street lights and stop lights. It's a regular old intersection now.

And I'm not really complaining. Really. I LOVE that I don't have to go to the other side of the valley to get to Target anymore. Kohl's has become my favorite place to find clothes for the kids (and me too most of the time). McDonald's is a little TOO convenient on a busy night. All the restaurants and frozen yogurt shops are yummy. And the gas station and carwash (complete with a Subway) will definitely be used frequently by me, I am sure.

But it still makes a little sad to see the quiet intersection go away.

Under Construction...again

I think I have the most awesomest (is that a word?) brother in the world. He's super super busy, but always makes time for me when I need him. When we bought our house, we knew it needed some work. He came right over and did a thorough home inspection before we even bought it. Then he jumped right in and started making plans on how to fix it up. He set up a schedule, went with me to Lowe's (I don't know HOW many times), Demo'ed everything (and even hauled away the trash), and then got to work. He redid our entire kid's bathroom upstairs including new tile in the shower and floor, a new tub, new fixtures, mirrors, etc. He fixed water damaged drywall, rehung all the cabinet doors in my kitchen and put hardware on them. He risked his life (literally) putting in light fixtures in our entry way and over the stairs (an electrical company would have charged us over $500.00 to do it). He hooked us up with awesome deals on a painter and plumber. He hung our TV on our wall, BY HIMSELF (another no small feat). And he's done TONS of other things too numerous to include.

So, when he noticed our flooring buckling in our half bath downstairs, he set to work to figure out what was going on. He found the toilet leaking and so then proceeds to rip out the whole floor, replace the damaged floor in the hallway and then lay tile in the half bath. He reinstalled the baseboard and put in a new toilet and didn't even mess up my paint job. AND he lets me pay him in meals. Seriously!!! Who has a brother this amazing? (I'm gonna have to make him read my blog for a change so he knows how AMAZING I think he is). And I'm sure it's sometimes a pain for him to take the time out to do it, but he never complains and is always willing to help. I just LOVE HIM!!! And I think I owe him meals for the rest of his life. Good thing he lives close.

I love ya Ty. Thanks for all you do for me and my family. I'm so lucky to have you.

Here are a few photos of him in action. I should have taken more.

Morning at the park

Spent the morning at the park on Friday. And before some friends showed up, I decided to do a little photo shoot of the kids. The wonderful thing about digital cameras is that you can take LOTS of pictures and then pick the best ones. Here are a few I liked.

Here's what Leah thought of me taking pictures of her at first.

Then she warmed up to it.

And even started to have fun with it.

Brandon was more interested in the dirt, than looking at me. Oh well.

Case in Point

Last night Brandon woke up at 1:45 am. We let him cry for a few minutes, but we both know that when he wakes up, he doesn't go back to sleep without us going in his room. So after a few minutes, Paul gets up and goes in to rock him. Ten minutes later I hear Brandon start to cry again, which means Paul must have tried to put him down in his crib. Another ten minutes go by and he again tries to put him down. But again, Brandon starts to cry. At that point, I go in his room. No fever, no leaky diaper, and he still has water in his sippy cup. Nothing seems wrong. So I took him from Paul and rocked him again. As I'm rocking him, he's snuggling into me, but I can tell he's still awake. But I try to put him down anyway. He immediately starts crying and reaching for me. Great, I think. This is gonna take a while. THEN I had an idea. I asked him if he wanted a ball to hold. It was dark, so I couldn't see his reaction, but all of the sudden he was okay with me laying him in his crib. I told him to hold on a minute while I found one. He didn't make a peep. I went downstairs and got him a ball, brought it back to him, and put it in his arm. He clutched on to it. I left the room and never heard another peep all night. In the morning, he had a death grip on it. Yup.....he's definitely all boy!

Halloween FUN!

Halloween was quite the exciting day around our house. We started out the day watching Paul play some church basketball. They lost, but that's okay. That means the season is over. hehe....I'm so nice huh? Then we rushed home, made a cake for the cake walk later that day and I ran over to pick up the Daisy Scout Fundraiser nuts. After Brandon's nap, we headed over to our old ward building to "crash" their Halloween Day Trunk or Treat. It was SO much fun to get to see some friends and enjoy their festivities. There was a great "non spooky" spook house complete with a puppet show about not being too greedy. I loved it. There were games to play, nachos to snack on, and of course, LOTS of candy from the trunk or treat. From there, we went to some friends house for dinner and trick or treating (MORE candy). Dinner was excellent, the company was great (I got to hold 2 week old baby Allie for a good 30 minutes.) and tricking treating with 8 other little kids was so fun. I can't wait until next year. We'll probably still have some leftover candy. Would it be gross to hand it out again? Ha...totally joking. Although, I do think candy would last that long. Yuck!

Ashlyn hand picked her costume and even wanted her face painted. I loved that she was a ghost this year and not another princess (not that there is anything wrong with Princess costumes. They just get old after a few years.)

Daddy had just finished reading the story of "The Wizard of Oz" with the girls a few weeks before Halloween. I was thrilled when Leah saw this outfit and wanted to be Dorothy. She looked perfect!

Then she got her face painted like a butterfly at the Trunk or treat, and from there most people were probably confused as to what exactly her costume was. Oh well!

That's Grace there on the left. Ashlyn's best little friend in the whole world.

Leah thinks Grace is her best friend too. Luckily, Ashlyn is pretty good at sharing her (most of the time.)

Little bit of trunk or treating fun.

All the big kids together getting ready for the big walk around the neighborhood.

Ashlynn is another best friend to Leah and Ashlyn. They have so much fun together. I'm so glad my girls have such good friends to play with.

And this is why Brandon is not in any pictures. He wouldn't put on his costume. It was so cute too. He was going to be the TinMan from Wizard of Oz. I thought it would be so cute for him and Leah to match. He would have nothing to do with his costume though and I was too cheap to run out and buy him another one. Oh well, maybe next year.

Checking out the loot after it was all said and done. Till next year!