Thanksgiving Weekend

I am thankful for a wonderful holiday weekend! I don't think it could have been much better!

It started actually on Monday (it was a LONG weekend!). After I picked Joshua up from preschool, he came home and crashed on the couch, taking a 2-hour nap. He had skipped breakfast and then slept through lunch. I had to force some snacks into him and he barely ate pizza for dinner. I didn't think much of it until Tuesday when he absolutely refused to get out of bed. Even to watch TV! He slept most of the morning and still wouldn't eat. I was grateful it gave me the free time to finish the quilt, but later in the afternoon I decided to call the doctor just in case. We ended up going in, and he got some antibiotics and an inhaler -- the doctor said that Joshua was borderline on needing them, but since it was almost Thanksgiving he gave them to us just to be safe. Luckily the predicted blizzard didn't come before we got home from that, and Ryan got home early from work to beat the blizzard.

The supposed blizzard only gave us a small dusting of snow, which is a blessing for Ryan who has a long commute! On Wednesday the boys didn't have school. They played really well together and we had a nice day at home.

On Thursday we had our wonderful neighbors, the Jacksons, over for dinner (and 2 of their single brothers). That is a story in itself. We originally didn't ask them, since I knew they had family in town and since we ate with them last year. I would love to have Thanksgiving with them again, but I didn't know if they'd want to endure us again! So at the beginning of November, I asked about 3 other families to join us for Thanksgiving. One by one, they all said they'd love to but they had other plans. I got upset. We all know that especially with a young family, you cannot have Thanksgiving alone -- it is just not worth all the effort! I secretly hoped our Arizona family would mention that they wanted to come up for the holiday. Then for a moment I secretly hoped they'd invite us to come down for the holiday (that only lasted for a few hours, until I realized that I really did not want to travel). Finally I decided to talk to the Jacksons . . . they didn't have any big plans yet and were excited to come over. I think I was more excited to have them come! They really are great neighbors and we always have fun together!

I forgot to take pics of the table! So here's a shot of some of the place settings after we were all done and everything was cleared! We made turkey coloring books for the kids -- they could color or write what they are thankful for while waiting to eat.

We had a great afternoon . . . yummy appetizers (who would've thought that the shrimp would've been the most popular food among the kids?), delicious rolls, all the usual Thanksgiving goodness, and 4 pies! The kids played well together, the adults enjoyed some great conversation, and we all enjoyed some Lego Rockband to end the evening!



On Friday we all slept in -- yay! A friend from Arizona, Valerie, was in town and stopped by for about 15 minutes to say hi. Then I went shopping. Most of my Christmas shopping is actually already done. I went out to see if I could find any good deals on games and sports equipment for the PTA to give to the teachers as classroom gifts. (I know some people feel sorry for me that I am having to do things like this for PTA, but I love it! The gifts were originally someone else's job this year, but I am happy that I get to do it instead!) I found chess and checkers for $2 each, and Uno was BOGO half price. I also found decent prices on nerf footballs and some basketballs. My cart was FULL! As I was paying for everything, another employee walked up to the register and said to me, "Wow. You have a lot of kids!" Yes, if these were for my family, that would be a lot of kids . . . I think I got over 20 balls and a dozen games. While I was gone, Nathan and Ryan worked on a "Soda Can Robot" kit than Nathan earned earlier in the month.


Friday afternoon, Ryan and Nathan started on the lights. Details on that deserve their own post -- coming soon! The evening was spent with hot chocolate, setting up the Christmas tree, and holiday movies. Saturday consisted of more sleeping in, holiday lights, and decorating the tree. I love that we spent a lot of the weekend taking care of our home/decorations and just hanging out!

Sunday we got a few inches of snow -- no mention of any "blizzard" in the news! After church, I was humbled by a knock on the door from Carrie, our bishop's amazing wife. She has 2 young kids, is pregnant, runs an etsy shop, and is right now virtually a single mom with her husband being busy with tithing settlement and other appointments. And yet, she brought ME a Tithing Settlement Survival Kit. Ryan definitely helps with this time of year, but no where near the time of the bishop. I should've made a survival kit for Carrie -- she certainly needs one more than I do!


It is absolutely AMAZING! Look at all the time and thoughtfulness she put into the kit! Nathan and I already played the temple Memory game, and all 3 boys loved playing with the pipe cleaners. And I love that I got one of her beautiful bags. Carrie, thanks for your amazing example of service, of thinking of others. I am humbled and hope to be that thoughtful someday!

Nathan's "2 and a half inch person"

Benjamin's "1 foot 8 inch person" that he named "Mormon"; love the blue eyes!

Americana Pinwheel

Back in September our Relief Society had a service auction. Everyone was to come with something that they could auction off, either already made or a service to be performed after. The "money" was determined by filling out a survey -- the more points, the more money to spend.

We got the chance to look over the items before the auction part started, and I knew exactly what I was going for: 3 different people were offering an evening of babysitting. With young women in short supply around here, a date night was very needed! I ended up spending $400, almost all of my money, and it was SOOO worth it! In October Ryan and I enjoyed a nice evening out, had a great babysitter, and didn't have to pay for it!

I decided to auction off a quilt. Since I didn't have any pre-made (I am still behind on a few projects!), I offered to make the winner a quilt. She could pick the design and fabrics and I'd make a baby, wall, or lap quilt. If she wanted bigger than that, I would do it but she would need to help pay for it.

Since I didn't have any examples there, and since our monthly Quilting Group is poorly-attended, I had no idea how many people would be interested in my service. As the items were auctioned off, mine still hadn't been auctioned, and I knew people were running out of money. I knew not to take it personally since we were nearing the end, but I braced myself for the quilt to sell for very low. The low end was $100 and things selling on the high end were going for $400-500, so I prepared mentally for the quilt to sell for $150-200.

When my item came up, I was shocked at what happened. Two women had apparently been waiting just for my item. After a handful of people bid through the first few hundred dollars, these two women had an all-out bidding war! When the price went over $500, one of them even acquired more money from people at her table so that she could win! I don't remember exactly now, but the winning bid was just over $600 -- it was the highest item of the night. Wow.

It turns out that the winner, Sherilyn, has a daughter getting married December 4. (They are fairly new to the neighborhood, so I didn't know about it before.) She really wanted a quilt for her, but had no one on either side of the family that could make it. I'm sure my eyes got really big when she said the wedding date -- that was basically 2 months to make a queen-sized quilt! What did I get myself into?!

I met with Sherilyn and her daughter Brittany. I'm glad that she got to pick the design she wanted (we looked at ones that wouldn't be TOO time-consuming to pull off in 2 months) and that we went to the store and she picked all the fabrics. That way she is sure to love it, right?

Sherilyn made sure to send her 11-year-old daughter over a few times to play with Joshua and Elizabeth so that I could work on the quilt. I finished this morning -- I met my personal deadline of getting it done before Thanksgiving! And when she came to pick up the quilt, Sherilyn brought over homemade jam and homemade pumpkin pie -- yum!

The whole quilt

detail of the stitching

Reflections

Every year the school has a Reflections art contest. There are quite a few categories the students can enter: writing, visual arts, music, dance, and 3D art. Last year Nathan entered a painting of a bee and a flower for the theme "Beauty Is."

This year's theme was "Together We Can." Nathan had originally wanted to enter into each category, but in reality there were many more things he wanted to do with his time each day than work on Reflections! So it came down to the last few days before the deadline and Nathan ended up with a poem and a 3D creation.

Nathan is a very creative writer, especially when he writes his own stories. I tried to convince him to write a fictional story that would fit into the theme, but he decided he wanted to do a poem instead:

Together We Can

Together we can walk,

together we can talk,

together we can bike,

together we can hike,

together we can run,

together we can do a ton!

He spent most of his time working on his 3D creation. It was all his idea, but he had a little help from mom and a lot of help from dad to put it together.

It is a football stadium to show how the players can win games together and that together we can cheer on others.

It won a 1st-place ribbon and is moving on to the District level! This is the only picture I got with the ribbon so far (as he's walking to put it next to his art). I forgot to get one after the actual awards ceremony. Then he had to leave it with his art until after the weekend so that it would be on display for the students to see. When he went to pick up his ribbon on Monday, it was missing (the art was still there). So we are working still to find the ribbon!

And what blog post would be complete without a picture of Elizabeth?! Here she is playing in the back during the awards night.

Fall Fun

Yesterday Joshua and Elizabeth and I went outside to play. Then I noticed that a lot of the leaves from our trees had fallen, so we got out the rake.

I love that Joshua was so excited to do a lot of the raking!



Then we scooped the leaves into a bin and took them to the backyard to use as compost in the garden box. Elizabeth thought that was fun. She was actually a pretty good helper!


It was a cold but fun morning. I love making memories from the small things!

Birthday!

I can't believe it's been 9 years since Nathan was born!

We went out to dinner on Friday night to the Pizza Pie Cafe. It's a pizza/pasta/salad buffet. We've been there once before, and he really wanted to go there for all of the dessert pizza!


On Saturday he had 3 friends come with him to the movie theater to see "Megamind." Ryan took them and Benjamin and Joshua while I stayed home with a napping Elizabeth. When they got back, we had presents and cake with the friends.

Elizabeth enjoyed her first "licking the beater" experience!

I think this is the first cake I've made for one of my kids that didn't take a long time to create! I enjoy making fun cakes for them, but this year Nathan really wanted Out of This World Dessert. It is a layered dessert that uses cream cheese, whip cream, and chocolate pudding. I also sprinkled crushed Oreos on top.



After we took the friends home, Nathan opened presents from the family.


We didn't take enough pictures of that, but he said his favorite presents were the Electronic set (he can make alarms and such with it) and the Bakugans from his friend. But then the next day, his favorite was this space Lego set:


He literally worked on it and played with it all morning! It was a great birthday weekend!

Halloween

Wednesday was the annual carnival-type Halloween party at church. There seemed to be fewer games this year, but the kids still had fun. The pictures we took of the boys didn't turn out, but here is our cutie lady bug. I had to laugh that there was a lady from another ward that we didn't know at all who thought Elizabeth was so cute that she got out her phone and took a picture!



Friday Joshua had a party at pre-school. Then we went over to Provost for the Halloween costume parade.

Elizabeth waiting for the kids to come out. Joshua was off at the playground.

Nathan the Magician

Benjamin as Bumblebee, the Transformer. He's not supposed to wear masks at school, so I told him he could wear it as a hat. Oops!

We went trick-or-treating on Saturday. The weather was great in the morning, cloudyafter lunch. It turned into rain mid-afternoon. Benjamin kept saying he thought Halloween would be ruined because of the rain, and Nathan's solution was to just wait until Monday to trick-or-treat! It stopped raining around 5:00, which was time for dinner and then we were going to go out. People started coming to our door when we were finishing up dinner, and I started feeling like we were late getting out the door. It turns out, I'm glad we were slower . . . soon after those trick-or-treaters left our house, the heavens opened and it was raining in sheets! I felt so bad for those who were outside!

We finished getting ready, took some pictures (not on the porch this year -- too dark, cold, and wet!) and then waited for the rain and wind to subside.
Luckily we didn't have to wait too long. But it was still too windy and cold for Elizabeth to go. So she got to stay with me and say hi (she really would say "hi") to the trick-or-treaters while Ryan took the boys.
We finished the evening drinking hot chocolate and watching halloween cartoons on TV. Ironically, the weather on Sunday, which was the real Halloween day, was fairly nice and would have been perfect for trick-or-treating. Oh well!