Thanksgiving Thursday

• Safe travels to our parents house. It is nice to have that drive behind us for a few days.
• Thanksgiving Day. It is nice to have a day that we think of all we are thankful for, but really, we should live in thanksgiving daily as we will realize the hand Heavenly Father plays in our lives.
• Visits with Family, are nice. It is good to see the nieces and nephews and how much they grow. It is fun to see Aunt and Uncles reaction of how much our kids have grown. Now that we are employed and time off has to be taken to visit family, we are realizing how spoiled we were while we were in Pullman.
• The blessings of this past year.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and hopefully, this next year will bring lots of blessings and thankfulness all year thought.

A New Look

I was not looking for a new look, actually, I was planning on trimming my hair to make it healthy again, but after talking to Jodi (my sister) I realized that trimming it was not going to make me happy. I needed and wanted to change the current style of my unruley hair. I wasn't looking from something dramatic, and I still wanted it long enough to put up. I don't think we did any of that, and actually, it got cut shorter than we originally planned.

Before: After:

I LOVE it! It took me 10 minutes to dry and style. I can still pull up the sides, but the back is short, and feels so light and thin, something I am not use to with my thick hair. I am glad that I made the change.
Here is the side view:

She's turning 5!

Emma turns 5 this next week, the day after Thanksgiving to be exact. We are going to be in Idaho this year for Thanksgiving, so we decided that we would do a little family party before we left home to go to Idaho. She really wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese's, but it is in Orem, and Shawn is on call and we decided to stay closer to Spanish Fork. Carls Jr. was just remodeled, and they have a play area, she's been asking to go there for a while, so that is just what we did.

Paige even played in the toddler area and loved playing with the other older kids that were there.

Mason enjoyed Emma's little family party. He kept singing "Happy Birthday to you" all day long. As I was working on Emma's cake, he kept sneaking up and poking his finger in the frosting. I don't know how he kept slipping under me with out me noticing him.

After dinner, we had Snow White cake. It was fun to put together, but I really didn't feel like I did Snow White justice. I couldn't figure out how to put the candles in, so they were just sticking out the side of the dress. Emma loved her cake! She changed her mind every time I asked he what kind of cake she wanted, so I made her sit down with me and look at some cakes to get some good ideas. Snow White won out!

It was good cake. Pink, Blue and White. Her favorite colors.

Paige did her best at saying Happy Birthday when we were singing, and she was SO excited! When I took the cake back to the kitchen counter to cut it, she got really sad and started crying hard. I think she though that she wasn't going to get any. She really made a mess of what she got.

I couldn't believe how Mason downed his cake and Ice Cream. I would have gagged at some of the bites he was taking. I think that my kids were all telling me that cake on birthdays is not often enough.

Paige got Emma some more puzzles. Emma was really excited for the 2 she got.

Ok, So I need to give a back ground story for Mason's gift to Emma. This last Sunday, in one of the ads, was a picture of Hungry Hungry Hippos. Mason walked around the house ALL DAY carrying the ad and pointing at the picture and saying "Hunnry Hunnry Hippo" He was completely into it. Wednesday when I took him to go shopping for Emma's b-day present, He found the game, and wanted to get it. We were hoping to give it to him for Christmas, but after exhausting ALL my options and walking around the store for 30 minutes I decided that there was no detouring him. Every option I gave him he would respond "No. Hunnry Hunnry Hippo!" So we get home, and he carries the game inside (Emma and Paige are in bed because we took so long) and showed Shawn. Shawn just looked at me as if to say "What??" I explained, and then Mason wanted to open it and play. He got SO mad when we put it away. I am sure he though that the game was his. Emma was really happy to get this as a gift, but she had also talked about getting this for Mason for Christmas also. Spoiled those plans.

We played the game for about 20 minutes before it was bath time.
And then they all took a bath together, something that doesn't happen too often anymore.

It was fun to celebrate with Emma, fun to see her get excited about everything that comes with a birthday. It is fun to look back and see the way she has grown.

Happy early Birthday Emma! We love you!

Ouch?!#$% That hurt!

We have been working non stop at unpacking the house, partly because I want to take pictures to share with you, but mainly cause we want to not live with boxes anymore. We unloaded (most) our food storage Wednesday night , and we were getting ready to head up to bed and Shawn grabbed 1 more box, filled with #10 cans full of food. As he picked up the box, I noticed that the bottom of the box wasn't taped. As I started to say something a can fell out and landed right on the side of Shawn's foot. The can fell with the top rim pinching the side of Shawn's skin on his foot. We stopped at that point, and decided we had enough.

Here is what it looked like 10 minutes later:

He opened the blood blister and drained it, it drained all day yesterday. To add to the insult, while on a farm called yesterday, a horse stepped on this same foot. He said it hurt really bad when it happened, but last night he said it felt fine. If this is the worst it gets, we are thankful nothing else has happened to our accident prone family member. :)

• Realizing how truly blessed we are as a family, I am as an individual and Shawn and I are as a couple. I believe that sometimes we really get lost in the trivial things of everyday life, sometimes it is hard to see how we are blessed with the blessings aren't handed to us on a platter. This last week, I have been in awe at all the blessings I see, and can't see poured out upon me.
• Neighbors we sadly moved away from. One neighbor, who I have not gotten to know real well, but have talked to a few times, volunteered to come over on the spot and help us clean the rental. I was blown away by her service. Another neighbor, my visiting teaching companion, brought us dinner after we moved. It wasn't just dinner, it was dinner, fruit, dessert and a friendly smile. I sure hope we stay in contact. I hope I can make some good friends in our new neighborhood.
• Strong help. If it wasn't for all the muscles we had while moving, I am sure we would still be working on it. In cold weather, with snow and yuck, I was surprised and humbled at the help we had. There were some of the youth from our ward who came with their Dad's to help us, and they worked hard.
• I pinch myself daily to make sure I am not dreaming. Our home is more than I ever dreamed our first home to be. It has everything and more than we need and the area it is in has more blessings that I could have asked for. The school Mason goes to is taught by a lady who use to teach an Autistic preschool, she now works for the school district in the preschool. She is wonderful. We are close to Emma's school, and we have 2 parks close. If the house wasn't enough, everything around us is even more than I could have asked for.
• My hard working husband who wore himself out moving us, and then continued. He is such a good man, and has such a great work ethic.
• An upcoming trip to Idaho, not that I am looking forward to the drive, or that I haven't seen family recently, but it will be nice to see the family again, and more than ever, it will be nice to go to the temple with my sister for her first time. It will be nice to have most all of my family in the temple together.
• Running vehicles that get us from one place to the other, while keeping us warm in the cold and cool in the heat. We enjoy music and other things from the radio that keep us entertained and sometimes we learn something while traveling from one place to the other.
• Our new Couch and Love seat are so comfortable to sit on, it is so fun to just sit and do nothing on them. Now I just want to invite over some neighbors to enjoy them with us.
• The best sleep we have had in years. We got ourselves a new bed. It is a king size bed, and we feel like we can go just about anywhere in the bed and not touch each other. If feels huge, and I like it. Not just the size though, we both love bed time now. In the morning, we wake up, and we don't feel the pain we use to, but we are so comfortable that it is hard to get out of bed. I wish I could lay in bed all day some days :0)
• My cute kids fill my days, keeps me busy, adds to every mess I have to clean up, get into trouble, but makes me smile more through out the day that it makes up for all the naughtiness kids cause. I am so glad that we didn't wait till be were done with school to add these special little spirits to our home. The make our house a home.

Thankful Thursday

• Our new house that we are moving into this week. Hopefully I will have Internet so I can post much awaited pictures.
• A slave driving husband who has kicked me (not literally) into the packing mode. We wouldn't be where we are in the packing department if it wasn't for him.
• Parent teacher conferences today and tomorrow for the kids. It will be good to get an idea as to where the kids are and the way their teachers see them. It will also be good because their teachers change next week.
• A abundance of stuff that has to be moved. Just shows me how blessed we are (or cursed) to have so much.

I know I have so much more to be grateful for, but in the interest of time (I should be packing my kitchen) I am leaving my list short.

Oaty Oatmeal

Paige has enjoyed sitting up to the table with us in her chair, and for the most part, we have a good meal. Tuesday morning was a different story as Paige thought that Breakfast was actually art time.

She went straight to the bathtub from here.