Thanksgiving

Ahhh, my favoritist holiday! There is nothing bad about this holiday. I love this harvest time of year. All of my garden beds are cleaned out. all of the Halloween Candy is gone. Technically it is not Christmas Season yet, so we have this delightful lull. I like to sit back and reflect on the year. Did I accomplish any of my New Years's Resolutions? What happened to my family during the year and best of all, what am I thankful for. In a time when the ecomony outlook is bleak, I realize that it could be so much worse. I am happy to be alive. I am healthy and so is my kids and husband. This is good because my kids are temporarily uninsured. The good blessing is that they will have insurance next month. Yes, it will be very costly, but it's insurance!

My cars both thankfully run. One needs a major repair, but it runs. The other one had a problem, but it was easily fixed by my husband. Our cars are not Escalades, but they are paid for. What is better than that?

My husband has a reliable job. It is not the most glamourous or perfect. He has to work most weekends, bummer, but we know where the next paycheck is coming. Most importantly, my husband enjoys it most days. This reminds me of something else to be thankful for.

I love the fireplace in our house. It is nice to turn it on when it is cold. I love to get a pillow and a good book and lay in front of it when no one is at home. It is so quiet and peaceful. The warm glow of the fire always comforts and cheers me.

A few more blessings to be thankful for are good friends to have lunch with; absorbing books to take me to another time or place; memories of vacations past that were so perfect; Running in the morning and feeling my body work so effectively. I love to feel my lungs fill with clean and precious are and to have my head clear; A small and simple pleasure is my ipod. I am thankful for freedom.

I can't forget the food. Turkey is the best. My favorite is fresh cranberry sauce and from scratch yams. It's all good. The potatoes smothered in gravy; the veggies, relish trays and salads; the cranberry juice and rolls; the pies. Yum. Eat it all and enjoy, but don't overdo it. It will ruin the experience.

I appreciate so much talking to friends and neighbors about their holiday plans. Hearing all the different traditons is so fun and enjoyable! When I talk to others about the holidays it gets me so excited about them. When I talk to others and hear their love for their families I know that this is what I love about Thanksgiving. There is no stress and pressure to buy perfect gifts. Family, neighbors and friends are the gift. It is a great thing to celebrate.

Our time

Mark and I got away to Snowbird for an evening during UEA. It was so beautiful up there with the changing leaves and crisp air. We went on a hike up Bells canyon. It was all fine except Mark kept getting work phone calls (anyone else have this problem with their husbands not wanting to turn off the cell?). I got sick of waiting as call after call came in. He would stop and talk, not walk and talk, so I left him and went ahead. He went the wrong direction and we got separated for an hour and a half. I almost got up to the waterfall, when he didn't call (I guess the reception was spotty). I ended up turning around because I had no food or water and didn't know if he was even coming. Halfway down I found him and I wasn't happy. Oh well, you win some and lose some. I guess I should have been more patience. I did enjoy the quiet hike and stream gurgling along the path

Lyndsey shoots a gun

Sarah goes down the inflatable slide face-first

Scarecrow festival

Westley hangs with his sisters

Fall is Fun

My girls have been off-track from school for the past two weeks. We had plenty of fun. We went to the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point over UEA. Sarah had a preforming for Academy West Gymnastics Show Team there. Everyone was there except Mark who had to work. We did the inflatables, bungee cord ride, haunted house, games and BB Shooting. We got cotton candy, carmel apples, donuts and even saw Basketball player Sean Bradley Sarah had fun preforming her routine with the team.

Birthday Mania

Birthday Month has come and gone. Three birthdays between the 6th and 16th...thank you very much.

Lyndsey's was the first. It was September 6th. She was turning eight!! Of course she was lucky enough to have it land on Baptism Saturday. I noticed this would happen about a year ago. The wheels turned in my head and I though how cool and convenient it would be to have a kidlet birthday party/ extended family party for all three kids/ baptism celebration all in ONE DAY! Yea!!! Months of planning...First the perfect dress for my last baby and of course a cute photo of her in it.

Then we made the perfect invite (two kinds of course- one for the baptism and one for the kidlet party). Then I had to arrange all the food: Pizza, salad, veggie tray, fruit, bread sticks, appetizer, drinks, cake etc... for an army of 40 people. Then Lyndsey decided it would be fun to have a tea party complete with a craft for twelve little girls. They would make tea party bonnets (supervised by 6 adults). The straw hats turned out to not be easy to find and when I did, I bought out two stores worth. I had to also find the perfect flowers, netting and ribbon. The logistics of the party were mind boggling: be at a niece's wedding the night before, get everyone up and in church clothes and to the church at 9:30 AM on the morning of. Then someone thought it would be nice to have "a display table" with a book to sign for visitors. Please, this was supposed to be simple. It feels like a wedding.

After three loooonnng baptisms with over a hundred people in attendance, we finished and moved onto the party part. We had invited the little party girls to the baptism and had to transport them to the party.

Once we got there we had kids running all over the house; we were trying to bake 6 pizzas and get the food ready and I was trying to round up little girls to make there craft. We had a bit of dilemma with a father asking if his younger daughter could come to the party too (what??? why do men create such social blunders. What could I say? Of course I graciously said sure) now I wouldn't have enough hats. It was stressful but worked out in the end when a girl who was at the baptism didn't show up to the party (whew!)

Several adults wrangled hot glue guns, flowers and bows onto hats and we settled down for a tea party with china and lemonade. The girls looked adorable and finally we were able to feed the crowd who was patiently waiting for the cooking pizzas to be done and the craft to be finished.

There was lots of food and more people kept showing up (I will save you from the details). Now it was present time. Relatives brought presents for all three kids. We had our presents for Lynz and her friends of course brought gifts. Then there were more baptism gifts and cards. Wrapping paper, tissue paper, plates, cups and napkins of paper. A new hamster for Lynz running loose in his ball. Kids and people in my house and yard. FINALLY, the joy was over. It took the whole rest of the weekend to recover and then... and a few days later...It was Sarah's birthday.