I Am Grateful For...

This is my "grateful" list I had running over in my sidebar during November. Just thought I'd post it here so that I will remember.

This November I am Grateful for...

...Hugs. I am a hug person and I need some every single day to survive. I'm so lucky to have 5 people in my very own home to hug and get hugs from...whenever I want! 11.24.08
...My computer and for Tory who keeps it running smoothly. I've come a long way in the computer world since we've been married! 11.23.08
...The beautiful creations that are all around us. 11.22.08
...Heat! Last night was COLD. Yes, it gets cold even in TX. 11.21.08
...Laughter. I love to laugh. The best is hearing my kids laugh. Don't underestimate the power of laughter. 11.20.08
...Perspective. Especially an eternal perspective. Sometimes it helps to step back and look at the whole picture when I'm caught up in the here and now. 11.19.08
...The talents I have and those I hope to discover. 11.18.08
...Texas and the opportunity to live here. 4 years ago we planned to get through school and get out of here! Now we love it so much we've decided to stay. It grows on ya. 11.17.08
...Tory's job. Even though it's a struggle starting up I'm grateful he has the ability to work. 11.16.08
...Blogs and the ability to keep in touch with everyone and also to have a record for our family. Everyone should have a blog! 11.15.08
...The changing of seasons. 11.14.08
...My warm and cozy home. 11.13.08
...Good health for me, Tory, and our kids. 11.12.08
...The brave people who have fought and continue to fight to protect us. 11.11.08
...Telephones so that I can communicate with my family even though they are so far away. 11.10.08
...My membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 11.9.08
...This great country that we live in. 11.8.08
...The opportunity I had to serve a mission. 11.7.08
...Beautiful music in all varieties. 11.6.08
...My education and my degree. 11.5.08
...My friends-no matter how I met you or how long ago I saw you...I am thankful for you! 11.4.08
...My 4 precious children-Austin, Dallin, Coen & Claire 11.3.08
...My wonderful husband Tory and all that he does for us. 11.2.08
...My family-parents, siblings, and extended family. 11.1.08

Remembering...

Just thinking of my brother Jimmie today. He would have been 27 years old today! Wow! Hard to believe. It's been a long time since we've seen that cute little face. Still miss him and think of him often.

Thanksgiving Day

I was looking back through my blog and realized I never posted about Thanksgiving! What in the world?! We had a nice Thanksgiving day. We watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. Well...I did. Why isn't anyone else very interested in it? I remember watching it every year when I was younger and I loved it. Maybe my family doesn't get into it as much because they can't SEE the parade. Ha. Our good old rabbit ears don't quite pull in a crystal clear picture that's for sure!

It was a quiet little dinner with just our family. This was the first time we've ever been all alone. It was nice though and it was also nice to not have to worry about when we had to eat.

We had a lovely feast with all of our traditional foods: turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, scalloped corn, purple cabbage, cranberry cream, veggie/relish dish, and rolls.

Of course we had to have some pumpkin pie and my family's famous apple pie to finish things off! (Pay no attention to the TERRIBLE pie crust job! I ran out and just HAD to make it work. It was very thin and there wasn't enough to do the normal pretty scalloped edge. In my defense...it still tasted really good!)

The Story of a Girl in Pink

Claire's mommy loves to dress her up every single day but Sundays are extra fun. That's the day when all the accessories come out. This Sunday was no exception. Claire's mommy dressed her in pink from head to toe. Pink bow, pink ruffly dress, a pink sweater to keep the chill out, a pink bracelet, and even pink shoes tied with pink satin ribbons. When it comes to dressing Claire there is no such thing as overkill. Claire's mommy had to take some pictures to remember her cuteness.

Claire wasn't into it at all. Nothing could make her smile.

Then she found her dress and nothing could pull her eyes away from all those pink flowers.

And her mommy couldn't resist her cute little feet sticking out.

Before long Claire threw up her arms and said she'd had enough.

But inside the house she spotted her big brother Dallin who always makes her smile. So her mommy snapped one more picture. And she was happy for another hour...until it was time for bed.

The End.

It was good....

....really good! I thought so anyway. It sure seemed short though. Time flew! But that's a good sign right? I thought they did a good job getting all the main parts in. It just seemed like not enough detail though. But I guess that's why you're supposed to read the books first! The characters were all great and I liked the music for the most part. All I know is...I think I need to go watch it again. Only $4 for a matinee. That's not bad right? It's going to be a looonnng wait until it comes out on DVD. And when is the next one coming out? I need more!!!

I went to the midnight showing last night. Yes, I'm paying for it today but if you've never been to the opening show for one of these highly anticipated movies (ie. Harry Potter) then you've been missing out. You've GOT to try it! The atmosphere is so fun! People get all dressed up and everything. I went alone. It would have been more fun to have someone to go with but it all worked out. While waiting in line another lady spotted me and asked if I was alone. She was, too. So we sat together. It's always nice to have someone to save your seat in case you have to get up. But you'll probably want to make sure you take care of any bathroom breaks or snack runs BEFORE the movie. You won't want to miss a moment!

Blessings

I've missed the bandwagon on so many of the other "thankful" projects going around on blogs, so I decided to just do my own thing. And I think this time it just might work! I decided to list one thing that I am thankful for each day until Thanksgiving. I'm keeping my running list over on the right side of my blog.

I love Thanksgiving. It's one of my most favorite holidays. It is just such a "family" time and I love that! Unfortunately we haven't had many chances to celebrate with family in the last 4 years or so. The last time was when we got to go to the St. Louis area and spend Thanksgiving at my sister Heather's house with her family back in 2004. That was so fun! I loved being with her and baking all of our favorite foods together again like we used to do when we were younger and all living at home! They were our closest relatives at the time. They have since moved and now we are all alone again.

We spent the next two turkey days at our home and invited our good friends James and Rachael and their kids over. James was also a student at Parker with Tory at the time. That was probably the second best thing to having family. And they almost felt like family since we practically spent every holiday and a lot of weekends together! But then they moved away, too.

Last year we were invited over to spend Thanksgiving with some of our friends from church. That was a nice break actually. It was the first year I didn't have to bake anything! (But I did kind of miss it and especially the leftovers.) Of course I still had to make our famous family Apple Pie. It just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it! But now here we are again without any chances of being with family. But the upside is that the boys are getting older and having fun with all of our traditions and Austin recently said he WANTED to stay home this year and do our own thing. So there we go! Even though we don't have our extended family we always have our own family and I'm so thankful we have our traditions and fun times together and that the kids LIKE to be home!

These pictures are some of our fun Thanksgiving decorations that Tory and I have made over the last couple years. I draw them on the wood, Tory cuts them out, and then I get the fun part...painting them! We don't have a lot of decorations for Thanksgiving. I like the little breather in between Halloween and Christmas. Helps me to feel a little more organized again before Christmas hits. Ha!

Where is Coen?

Sometimes you just need to take a break...

This morning I was on the computer and after realizing I hadn't seen Coen for a few minutes and that he was being awfully quiet, I began my search for him. I didn't have to look very far or for very long. He was right behind me...on the kitchen counter! A perfect ledge about 8 inches wide. Just right for the tiny man. You can see that he used the high chair to give him a lift. The phone was off the hook so I don't know if he tried to make a call and just couldn't finish or what? He did find a nice dish towel that folded up to be the perfect pillow. I'm not sure how long he had been up there but he seemed quite comfy and wouldn't answer any of my questions about why he was up there. It was right before lunch so maybe he was just tired and ready for his nap. Funny little boy!

Cute Giggles

I took this video of Claire on Oct. 30. Dallin had her laughing so hard! Is there anything cuter than a baby laughing? Love it! Pause the music over on the right side of my blog so you can listen to her cute giggles. (Pay no attention to the laundry scattered about the floor. The boys like to "help" when I'm folding.)

Fun Give Away

There's a fun give away over at "Simply This That and the Other". For a chance to win this cute Peppermint Stick's Table Runner all you have to do is:

1) Leave a comment and vote for one of the catchy phrases for her new blog feature
OR

Submit your own idea.And you'll be entered to win this Table Runner.

2) POST about this Give Away on your Blog and she will enter your name a 2nd time.

{send her an email to let her know you posted it}

CONTEST ENDS:

November 6th, 2008

{12:00 a.m. PST}

Click HERE to enter!

What Time Is It?

Apparently Tory and I were the only ones in the family who got the memo about Daylight Savings. All four of our kids have really good internal alarm clocks and wake up at the same time every day regardless of what time they go to bed. That time is 7:15-7:30 am. Today it was 6:15. At least Austin wasn't late for school! And let's not forget about them needing food earlier! They get hungry so early! It's so hard to get kids on a new schedule every 6 months or so. Ugh. And so we begin the gradual return to normalcy...

The Cute Couple

Nick and Kirsten

I've got to tell ya...I've got one cute little sister and future brother-in-law. Check out some of their engagement pictures! Nick's brother took them. I just think they turned out so nice! And this is just a sampling! What a cute couple!

I think this one is so fun!

For Me

This will be my quote for as long as I need it...and right now I really need it.

"Make a courageous decision to hope...

even when everything around you

contradicts this hope."

-President Dieter f. Uchtdorf-

This wonderful quote comes from his great talk, "The Infinite Power of Hope", given in the October '08 General Conference.

3 Months Old

Claire is 3 months old today! Wow! I don't know how October slipped by so quickly but it did. Here are a few pictures I took of Claire today at 3 months old. She is so fun! She laughs and smiles and stays awake more now. I'm just enjoying her so much! She sleeps from 9:00 pm until at least 7:00 am and is moving into three distinct napping times which is nice. She still loves her swing and takes notice of the toys more. Her favorite things to watch are still her three brothers. Lots of action! What a fun, good, cute baby! She just fits right in with the family and just goes with the flow. We just love her to pieces!

Trick-or-Treat

Last night we took the kids to our ward Trunk-or-Treat at the church. They had lots of fun and collected quite the stash of candy. Coen was anti-any costume whatsoever. He finally decided he would be a turtle but that didn't even last long. Dallin was also anti-costume. The breeze was blowing his pirate wig hair into his face and it was driving him crazy so he took it off. Austin didn't want to wear his hood part of his costume AND Tory didn't even dress up! This is the first year since we've been married that he didn't dress up! Shocking! Claire was very cooperative and wore her little lamb costume with smiles. Cute! After the Trunk-or-Treat we let them do a couple streets in our neighborhood for "real" trick-or-treating. They tuckered out after about 6 houses. I couldn't believe how much candy they had collected. We had to tell them that the "Great Pumpkin" was going to be coming in the night so they could give him some candy. The Great Pumpkin eats a lot of candy but he'd probably leave a little for them. They seemed OK with it and this morning they found a few pieces for each of them and were so excited that the Great Pumpkin had actually come that they forgot all about the 15 lbs. of candy that had disappeared. Worked better than we had ever imagined it would! The Great Pumpkin is welcome back next year for sure!

Austin in front of the Haunted House at the ward Trunk-or-Treat

Coen the Turtle. He went through the Haunted House once and was terrified! This was very brave of him to get this close again for a picture! He wouldn't turn his back on this "mean doggy" though.

Claire snoozing with Mama. We were in charge of handing out the candy at our "trunk" while the boys made the rounds with Tory. We made a good team.

Dallin digging in!

Our cute little lamb. There was one man who was trunk-or-treating with his little boy at our car and he couldn't quite figure out what she was supposed to be. He guessed that she was a seal. A seal? Really?! His little boy said, "No! She's a sheep!" That's better!

At home with their loot!

Tory decided he wanted to sort, organize, and count the different kinds of candy just to see what we had exactly. It was amazing! For instance...there were: 12 Nestle Crunch bars, 45 Tootsie Rolls, 7 Butterfingers, 18 3 Musketeers, 20 M&Ms, 16 Kit Kat, 1 Almond Joy, 18 Reese's, 5 Snickers, and 29 Whoppers. And can you believe there are 81 Lollipops in that pile? 81! That's amazing! And these are only the "main" candies. Not counting all the random miscellaneous stuff that's not even in the picture. Now you see why the Great Pumpkin had to come and take it all away! I can't give my kids 81 suckers and all that other candy! You should have felt that bag we stuffed it all into! At LEAST 15 pounds I'd say! VERY heavy! Ugh!