My Black Friday Update

Yes, I'm "one of those" shoppers today!

Well, I made it in and out alive!! I left the house at about 4:30am and headed off to Fred Meyer. They had a couple things I wanted not to mention 1/2 price socks like every year. Only this year their sock selection was very sad! I guess they figured sales would be down so they didn't have as much inventory.
Then I headed to Target before they opened. While we were standing in line some guy pulls up in his truck and starts asking people if they wanted free coffee. There were a few takers. Then the guy stands up in the back of his truck and starts talking about freedom of speech. I was a little way down the line and people were talking so I couldn't hear exactly what he was saying. I think he was complaining about Obama and some rights we might loose and Obama's history. After a little while a Target employee came out and asked him to stop. The guy was very polite and thanked everyone for listening to him and then he continued to hand out free coffee. It was all very interesting. He had one or two helpers with him also handing out coffee. He hung out for a while and didn't cause any problems. Funny, I didn't know I was going to get free entertainment while I was standing out in the cold.
Finished at Target in record time and headed to Wal-Mart. Fast there also and headed over to Craft Warehouse. How can you pass up 4 for $1 card stock for scrapbooking? I can't!
Off to the JC Penney's and a few stores in the mall.
I had a successful morning of shopping and got everything I planned on getting so I was happy. I did it all while being close to 36 weeks pregnant and I didn't go into labor. ha ha
Sorry, can't tell ya any deals I got today...too many eyes :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day to all!! We all have so much to be thankful for and I hope you've taken the time to give it a bit of thought. I know I have.

I hope everyone has a great day with family and friends.

Shopping day tomorrow!!! :)

Stores and more stores

I usually know what everyone wants for Christmas and don't usually have a difficult time it, until today. This morning I hit so many stores looking for a particular item with no luck! That's aggravating!!!

So today I'm grateful for online shopping. Found what I wanted!!! But I still enjoy shopping in the store better. Can't wait for Friday!

I'm grateful for the opportunity I have to be in a position to not stress about Christmas and gift buying. I love to get gifts for people! My gratitude for this is mostly aimed at Alex since he's the one working so hard for us (for money anyway :) ).

Lower gas prices! It's coming down. It's nice with all this store hopping knowing that I'm not paying more than I am. But it's to my understanding that the prices should be even lower considering what the price of oil per barrel is. But I won't complain!

I'm still thankful!

It's not getting hard to think of things I'm thankful for but it is hard to get on here every day and write about them.

While Kris is thankful for central heating in her home (which I'm thankful for also) I am thankful for fireplaces. I have a little bit of comfort knowing that I can start a fire in my fireplace and not have to rely on Alex, although he does it much better! It's nice to know that if for some reason we don't have power that we can start up a fire and have at least part of our home toasty and warm. I think of it as part of preparedness :) Every home should have a fireplace!

I feel like I have continually dry skin! My hands are always dry. So I'm very grateful for lotion. I couldn't live without it!

Along with dry skin comes dry lips, at least for me. So I'm very happy to have chapstick and other lip moisturizers. I was shopping at Wal-Mart a while back and stocked up on my chapstick and the lady asked me how many purses I had. Ha ha. (a few) But I had to tell her that I have chapstick strategically placed everywhere, in my purse, in the car, in the kitchen cupboard, in the dresser in my room, I think I have one in my church bag too. It's a must have!

Thankful

Today in Sacrament Meeting all the speakers were asked to talk on thanks, in some form or another. One youth read a long list of things she was thankful for, some of them she gave a brief explanation. Even though that was all she talked about it was a good talk. It was fun to hear some of the things she listed and I listened closely to see if there were things that applied to me that I could add to my daily thanks.

Today I'm thankful for the opportunity to make it to sacrament meeting. Both boys have been fighting a cold with that gunky cough. Alex stayed home with the boys for the first part of church and then I swapped with him so he could go and teach priesthood. It was nice to sit in sacrament meeting with just the girls and actually be able to listen to the speakers.

Another thing I'm thankful for is people who can play the piano, and play well! We had a musical number today, just a piano piece. I love listening to piano music! I love to listen to Kris play the piano and wish I has stuck with it too. There's a few people in our ward that can play really well and I love to listen to them. So I'm very thankful for people who play the piano so well.

We had one of our home teachers come tonight. His partner was away on a business trip in London! I'm grateful they come and I'm grateful for the nice messages they bring. I'm glad they have young kids also and put up with my boys and think it's funny to watch them. I don't feel quite so stressed when they come over.

My Birthday

Friday was my birthday and it was a good day. I usually put too much thought into how my birthday "should" go and then I'm disappointed that it didn't go like I thought. One might think I'd quit setting such high expectations for myself. Well, this year it was good. I figured it might be good because a week before Alex took the kids shopping. There was some thought and planning involved. Friday for lunch my mother in law took me to lunch. Anytime I'm able to go to lunch without my kids is a nice treat. After Harley got home from school they had me open my presents. To my surprise I received a new laptop!!! Oh happy day!! In fact, I'm posting right from my new birthday present! Sweet! I'm lucky to have Alex to set up everything for me or I would be lost. Cierra picked out a cute stripe case for my laptop (which includes a pink stripe). They also got me a photo album for the baby and a very nice gift card to a local scrapbook store. How could it get any better? Well...I didn't actually get to go out to dinner for my birthday but that was kind of my own fault. A huge group of ladies were planning on seeing Twilight on Friday night and I couldn't pass that up, so I went. I don't think I've ever been to the movie with a large group like that before. It was fun! So, I had a great day, probably one of the best birthday's I've had in a long time!

Day 12 and 13

So I did it again, missed a day but I am determined to get every day in even it I have to play catch up. Here's 6 more things I'm thankful for. Sometimes I try to list things on days when they relate to my day, sometimes not.

1. I am very grateful that I have a car that runs good and I don't have to worry about breaking down on the side of the road. That happened to me way before cell phones when I had the mustang and it was at night, yikes! So I love having a newer car that I can rely on. Especially now that it's getting colder out!

2. I'm grateful that I know how to sew. That goes right along with a while back to my Mom. She's great at sewing and I learned it all from her, the knowledge and the joy to do it. I love being able to make stuff for my kids and others. I'm not the greatest but I feel like I've gotten to the point where I can pick a pattern and sew it. Not pick a pattern just because it looks easy.

3. Preschool. All of my kids have gone to Westside Preschool here in Richland. I love their program and love their teachers. They are run out of a Christian Church that shares the building so they also teach small amounts of church related things. They say small prayer for snack time and ask for those who are not there to be remembered. I think it's great because maybe for some kids that's the only exposure to church they may get. Spencer has missed two days this week because he's felt so cruddy. I'm thankful for the days when he can go, and he LOVES to go to school. He asks every night if he has school the next day.

4. Harley. I already said that I was grateful for my kids but I have to put a plug in for Harley. Being the oldest she's kind of expected to behave like the oldest even if it's not said. She's awesome!!! She's a great little peacemaker in our home. She always tries to break up fights between siblings. One thing that I find humbling is that she tends to notice when I am at the end of my rope with the boys and she will take them under her wing and find something fun for them to do. It doesn't happen all the time but when it does I feel very grateful to her for her attitude. Don't get me wrong, she has her moments when she finds the boys frustrating also. I love that she is old enough to babysit. It's nice to be able to run to the store, or attend a meeting. Love her!!!

5. I'm grateful for where I live. Alex and I had a short stint in Vancouver, WA and we really liked it there. If we would have had work there early on we probably would have moved there and stayed. I think early on I may have gone many places and stayed. Things change once your kids get in school!!! I enjoy living in Richland. It's nice to be close to family. I also enjoy the climate here. I love the summers, being able to hang out at the pool is one of the things we look forward to. Now owning a boat it's great to live here because of the rivers. I've always enjoyed living near the rivers. I'm glad we don't get the earthquakes, tornadoes, scary California fires, 10 feet of snow (although more would be nice!), constant rain, hurricanes, major flooding and I'm sure there's more things I'm missing. I think it's just right here.

6. Music. I always have the radio on in the car. I like all kinds of music really but when we are in the car I usually have it on a country station. Sometimes I'll change the channel and then my kids are confused. I love the music on my blog. Sometimes I like to just get on the computer for the music. I think it was Kris or Allie who commented on music being able to put you in different moods and it's so true. I'm grateful that we have such a wide variety of music to choose from!

Day 11!

I think I'm on day 11 anyway. At first I thought it would be hard to keep coming up with things, then as I started, things started coming to me and it was pretty easy. Now I'm back to my original thought. Some days are hard and some aren't. So here goes for today.

1. Voice Mail. That includes both cell phone and home. So, on Friday there's a group of ladies (close to 30) going to see Twilight. I was supposed to get my money to a gal this morning before she headed out to get tickets for everyone. I completely forgot! I dropped off kids, ran to Wal-Mart, had help day in a class, you know how it goes, one thing after another. Then Alex called me and told me I had a voicemail from the gal about the money. Luckily I caught her in time and all is well. Thank goodness for voicemail, I still get to go to the movie!!

2. My Bed. It's so nice to snuggle up in my bed at night. I can't imagine sleeping on a sack filled with straw or hay on a wood platform. Even when we go camping I get to sleep on a nice air mattress. It's nice to come home after trips and have my nice comfy bed to sleep in. The only problem is that it's so comfy my kids think they need to join me, especially when Alex is gone!

3. Bath Tubs. I have always loved the smell of my children when they are fresh and clean from the bath. Especially when they are babies and they smell like baby soap and lotion. So snuggly!!! I love to let my boys be boys and play outside, knowing that I can throw them in the tub when they come in and all is well. Roll in the dirt? Sure, why not! I just wish I had a big tub for me. Being tall makes normal tubs not too comfortable. :)

Another day of thanks

1. My Camera. I love being able to take pictures of life in our house as it happens. I'm so glad I have a camera. Love to catch all the moments!
2. My Dad. So many things I could say about my Dad. But along with the first one, I'm grateful for my Dad for his love of photography. He has always taken pictures. I can remember as a small child my Dad developing his own pictures. We would be "banned" from the basement laundry room while he used it for his dark room. We have some amazing black and white photos! We have pictures from Thanksgiving back when I was small. We still take pictures on Thanksgiving every year. I love that I can count on at least one good family picture each year. I'm so thankful that my Dad has so many pictures of us growing up. It's so fun to sit in the living room and go through photo albums or even a slide show on the wall and chuckle at the way we all dressed. On a different note...I'm grateful that my Dad is such a hard worker and that he has planned for his future. I will never have to worry about him financially which is a great peace of mind to me. He's a great example of how to save and spend money wisely, even if we don't. Growing up with 7 kids in our family I remember having to "butter up" Dad to get stuff but I really never felt like we were really lacking for money. When in fact he made less than we make now. I tell myself often that if he could do it with 7 kids, I should be able to do it with 4 (5). Love you Dad!
3. Talented Scrapbookers. I love being able to get ideas on how to share stories about my pictures from others who are WAY better at scrapbooking than me. My girls are funny because they think I'm just amazing, the best scrapbooker but that's far from the truth. There are so many talented ladies (and a few guys) out there that are wonderful scrapbookers and I'm grateful they keep it going!

I missed a day of thanks

I was doing so good, shoot! Saturday was a bit busy with things happening all day long. I don't think I realized I had forgotten to post until this morning.
So for yesterday, here's what I am thankful for.
1. Quiet time. Alex took the kids (all of them) out on an "errand." I'm pretty sure it was something to do with my birthday coming up on Friday, he he he. :) Anyway, I got an hour and a half to myself ON A SATURDAY!! That nearly never happens. Even though I just folded laundry and watched a show it was nice. Which brings me to number 2.
2. DVR. I too love having DVR. I have quite a few shows set to record just for me. I find that I hardly ever watch them when they are on anymore. I can watch them much faster when I can skip all the commercials. LOVE IT!
3. Blizzards. Not the cold snowy, stuck in your house blizzards. The yummy, cold, creamy, tasty kind from Dairy Queen. I had one the other day and I only ate half (it was a large :) ) Last night after the kids were in bed I enjoyed the other half. Hmmmmm!

Today I'm grateful for
1. Children's Musinex. Spencer came down with a cold again. He just got over one not too long ago. Last night he had that lovely barking cough where he sounded like he couldn't breathe. Along with some Dimetap (Dime - A-Nap as we like to call it) he slept a little better. Today he's had his share of Musinex too to help with all that gunk. It's great.
2. Humidifiers. Yep same kind of story. Humidifiers combined with medication is great!
3. Hamburger Helper. Such a quick and easy meal without having to think about it. Since Spencer's not feeling well today I got it started and then ended up in the chair with Spencer sleeping on me. Alex did the rest!

Miss Guided Child

A funny story from Cierra today. First a little background. 5th Graders at Jason Lee go to Camp Wooten every year, right before spring break. They refer to it as outdoor education. Almost every class is held out doors and they include things like water classes, survival, fire building, dissecting owl pellets, dissecting fish, learning about trees and an animal class. I probably forgot some. So Mr. Ryder is one of the first people who started this program. Right now it's Mr. Ryder and Mr. Schuster (Cierra's teacher) who are the camp directors. There's an ongoing joke that Mr. Ryder catches bigger fish when they go fishing. So they joke that Mr. Schuster is "Captain Little Fish." Mr. Ryder's class has them to believe that Mr. Ryder is a better fisherman and Mr. Schuster has his class to believe the same about him. All the kids just eat it up and have such a good time teasing the other teacher about it.
Cierra's assignment. Cierra had to draw a picture only using polygons. So she decided to draw a picture of Mr. Schuster holding two fish. One was Mr. Schuster's BIG fish and the other was Mr. Ryder's small fish. Of course Mr. Schuster LOVED the picture. He sent Cierra right over to Mr. Ryder's room to show him the picture. He then told Cierra that "she is a miss guided child and needs mental help." She got such a kick out of that. That was the first thing she told me when I came in to drop off her cupcakes this morning. It's also a story we heard in the car on the way to the movie today. Just to be clear, that's totally Mr. Ryder. He loves to joke with the kids and they love it. So in now way did he mean what he said, totally joking with her. Just had to add that in case someone worried about that.

Mason's Fall Fiesta

Mason's Kindergarten Class held a Fall Fiesta today. Parents were invited and encouraged to come. It was nice that it was on a Friday and Alex was able to come. All the kids were so cute! They all made hats with leaves on them and were wearing them when we arrived. Alex and I were probably the last set of parents to get there and when we came down the hall Mason was waiting for us. He looked a little worried that maybe we weren't coming. I felt bad that we weren't there sooner but all was fine. We made a cute fall tree with Mason out of a traced foot (mine) and our hand prints traced and cut out. It turned out very cute, so cute that I had to hang it on our front door for fall. While we were working on our trees we has some yummy snacks that parents provided.

I just love Mason's teacher. She is so great with these little 5 and 6 year olds. I think it helps that she has a 6-7 year old son herself. She really understands what goes on in the life of a child that age. Anyway...they had learned a few songs with actions and preformed those for us. I think it's awesome that an adult is willing to sing with kids, sometimes you don't find that outside of church and I think it's great when you do! Kids don't care if you are a good singer or not!

Happy Birthday Cierra!!!

It's hard to believe that Cierra is 11. One more year and she'll be in mutual also. They really do grow up fast.

Last night Cierra made cupcakes for her class at school. Rainbow Chip, yummy. I frosted them for her this morning and then took them to her class. When Cierra's teacher thanked me for bringing in cupcakes I told him that she made them. He was quite impressed! Thanks to my Mom Harley and Cierra are very good at making cakes!

Like I mentioned, this evening we took a group of girls (and our kids) to see a movie for Cierra's party. The girls had a good time. It's always funny and a bit interesting to get a group of girls together. The conversations in the car are always hilarious. Cierra turns into this rambling girl talking a mile a minute about any and everything. One comment led to another and all of the sudden the girls were talking about how gross it was that men or women have operations to change them to the opposite sex! One girl who was not a member of the church made the comment that God made men and women to.... and then I didn't exactly hear what she said but the rest of the girls started saying "groooooossssss" all at the same time. So I had to take that opportunity to speak up. I told the that she was right, that God did make men and women for a purpose and one reason was to have children. Then I told them that we didn't need to go into detail about that (how). Then shortly they were onto another topic. Funny girls. But I was happy to hear that they all agreed that sex changes were gross.

After pizza and cake all the girls had a good time taking turns playing one of three Nintendo DS'. Mason was kind enough to share his. I was impressed!!

It was a good night!!

Day 7 of Gratitude

Cierra's Birthday is today and we had her party so that's what I'm thankful for today.

1. Movie Theaters. We took Cierra and 5 friends to see the new Madagascar movie. It was very cute and funny. The girls had a great time. How easy is that!!! That takes hardly any planning, it was great.

2. Bakery Cake. As much as I like to make and decorate a cute cake for my kid's Birthday's it's also nice to just run and pick one up when time is tight. There are some better bakery cakes than others!!

3. Pizza Hut. After the movie we ordered pizza before we ate cake. It's so nice to have dinner delivered!! How did people live without pizza delivery?

Day 6 of Gratitude

1. Small TV-DVD players. I always have TONS of laundry at my house which means I have many, many baskets to carry up and down the stairs. Well, today I wasn't in the mood to carry any baskets up the stairs to fold and put them away. So I took the TV-DVD player from the boys room downstairs and watched Bewitched while I folded countless baskets of laundry. Now I have to get all the kids to come get their laundry and put it away!

2. Pumpkin Muffins. Mmmmm. I got a yummy recipe from a friend. They have chocolate chips in them, very good! Made some tonight.

3. Parks. One of the mom's from school mentioned that she was going to the park after kindergarten so a few parents met up and kids ate lunch and the parents got to chit chat. We had a chilly windy day but the kids didn't mind. It was nice to sit and talk with adults for nearly an hour and a half.

My Hunter, Cierra

Cierra didn't have any luck getting a deer on her hunting trip with Alex but she had a good time! It would have been exciting to add a picture of her with a deer to these! It rained almost the entire time they were there. It's a good thing Alex had that pop up blind for them to sit in, they stayed nice and dry that way.

Day 5 of Gratitude

1. My Garage. Thanks for the idea Theresa! I love being able to park my car in the garage! Especially like days like today and other days this week. Today is VERY windy and it's so nice to be able to get myself and my kids in the car without having to go outside where it's yucky. It's really nice when it snows! Sorry Alex for having to park your truck outside, and thanks for keeping the garage open for my car!

2. Good health. I'm very sorry to all you women out there who have difficult pregnancies, really I am. I feel like I have it made in the shade sometimes when it comes to being pregnant. I feel good almost the entire time. I just get a little tired or worn out. I hardly get sick, only throwing up maybe once with each kid. I don't seem to get any complications along the way. After some discussion once with my visiting teachers I have decided that it really is true that we are only given what we can handle. Maybe I'm weak since I have it so easy, who know. But I am very grateful that I do so well while I'm pregnant!!!

3. Slip on shoes. Yea, since my middle section is getting rather large it's getting more and more difficult to get shoes and socks on. I could wear flip flops year round but I'm given a hard time about that. It's a good thing I have some non flip flop slip ons.

Alpha Friends Book

Just a little book I made for the boys. Alpha Friends are from Houghton Mifflin, a company that makes educational material for schools. This is what's used in Kindergarten here. I was given a copy of all the "friends" for Mason to have and color but I confiscated them to make copies from. :) It's amazing how they remember the letters from the Alpha Friends. There's a whole song that does with it, it's great! Spencer's already picking up on them! Don't look too closely, I'm not happy with my coloring job. I wanted to get it done and needed new colored pencils and opted for markers because they were right there. I'm just picky! I also have to say how much I love my Bind-it-All!! It's so great to have.

Day 4 of Gratitude

1. Rain. Living in the desert we don't get as much rain as on the west side of the state. I like it when it rains. It makes it a little crazy in the house sometimes with they boys but I just deal with it. I like the smell of rain, I like the effect of washing everything clean. Some people get a little down when it rains but it has more of a calming effect on me. I think it's just peaceful and it's raining this morning.

2. Showers. As we spent quite a bit of the day at my parent's house while Doug cut down limbs we all got stinky since the neighbor has a fire going in his fireplace. We all smelled like campfire. When we came home I gave the boys a haircut and had them jump in the shower. So nice to just wash everything down the drain. Then I realized how much I smelled like camp fire and took a shower right after the boys. I don't know if I could have lived in times when they went weeks or months without a bath. But if everyone stinks then maybe there's really no "stink" hmmmm?

3. Noggin. Spencer loves to watch the Noggin channel. There's quite a few shows he loves. So today when he woke up and I wasn't ready to get up, I just turned on Noggin and he watched Oswald while I got another half hour of sleep! If the boys are getting wound up I can turn that one and if there's shows like Oswald, The Upside Down Show, Pinky Dinky Doo, Wow Wow Wubzy or Miss Spider's Sunny Patch, they'll usually calm down and watch. It's lovely thing!!

Day 3 of Gratitude

1. Good doctors. So long story short, Harley has been having issues with stomach aches and all the lovely stuff that sometimes follows if you get my drift. We've had her tested for a milk allergy, not that. So we've been going on the assumption that she's lactose intolerant but she still has issues. We had some blood drawn for about 6 different tests, all came back negative. So today she saw a pediatric GI specialist from Seattle Children's (here). He was very nice, asked lots of questions, let us explain everything and gave us some good insight. So I think we might be on the track to getting this kicked. So...thankful for good doctors that will listen to us and get things taken care of.

2. My sisters. I don't want anyone to think that I'm not thankful for them by being the one to comment on them last. It's so fun to have both of them here now after having Kris in Utah for so many years. When she wasn't here I always thought about her and how fun it would be to have her hear to do fun stuff with us and now she is. Being the oldest I sometimes feel like I'm the one being looked up to, but let me tell you each of my sisters has their great qualities that I wish I had!!! They are great mothers and I learn things from them as well. And yes, I will clean up throw up, snot, diapers or whatever for my sisters kids because I love them (kids and sisters!) Crusty noses don't belong on any kid!!

3. Blogs. Okay so this literally just came to me. As I'm sitting here typing my cell phone vibrates and I check it to see what's up and find out I have new email. One being a notification that I just got a new comment on my blog from a gal that I have not talked to since March. I have thought about her and wondered how to contact her and it was too funny that she found my blog, I love it!!

Day 2 of gratitude

Today I need to turn a different direction from family for one of my things. We had stake conference today which included a new Stake Presidency. So first on my list is...

1. Past and Current Stake Presidents. Today President Sorenson was released as the Stake President of the Richland Washington Stake. He's a great man. I have grown up with him in my ward. As a youth he was my Bishop. He spent 10 years as Stake President!! Those who know him know he loves the river. As a Bishop he took the youth on many boating activities and still continues to do so. He's the one who taught me how to water ski. He's a great leader and just an all around fun guy. And along with him I'm also thankful for the new incoming Stake President. President Pulsipher. I don't know him quite as well but enough to know that he's a great man also. I had to chuckle to myself as all these men being released and called and were asked some share their testimonies, Pres. Pulsipher is "vertically challenged" compared to the other men. They had to lower the podium a bit when he stood up. Just gives him great character. I'm thankful for the gospel in my life as it helps me strive to be a better person, mother and wife. It's always nice for me to hear the testimonies of others and to hear it from many great men today was nice. I decided to have a little alone time and left Harley and the boys home while I went to Stake Conference by myself. Sometimes I just need that!

2. My Mom. I have to second everything that my sister said about our mother on her blog. Check it out here. I'm always amazed at the things that my mom can do. From parenting, grandparenting, sewing, cooking, gardening and all that stuff. She has very patient with all her grandchildren and always has something for them to do when they come over. Just the other day they had a blast washing windows. Then there's her gospel knowledge. She gave a talk not too long ago and as I sat there and listened and watched her give her talk I realized that she gave the whole talk and only looked down at her paper like 3-4 time!!! She just speaks from her knowledge of the gospel!! It was amazing. She's a great woman and I love her.

3. My Scrap Room. I know, doesn't compare to wonderful Priesthood holders or my mother but sometimes I just need to be able to go down there and be creative all by my lonesome. It's funny because it's still kind of new and the kids don't think right away to look down there for me. So I can here them walking through the house looking for me and then they finally remember that I might be downstairs. That just gives me that little added time. :)

Christmas Countdown

Check out my cute Christmas countdown calendar. I love the way it turned out. It's amazing what little embellishments can do to a project. From plain paper to totally cute! It's only 8x8 inches! Every thing's miniature. Each one is a little drawer to put treats in. I'm sure my kids will love it.

The blank countdown calendar is from Karen Foster Design. I purchased mine at Scrapbook.com. Click here to see!

Attitude of Gratitude Challenge

My sister gave a challenge (who she got from someone else, who probably got it from someone else) to blog about 3 things we are grateful for each day in November. That means I have to be diligent about blogging, at least to do that. What a great thing to take part in for the month of November. So here goes.

Today I am grateful for...

1. My house. Seems like a standard answer but I'm glad that I have one, seriously. Many years spent renting and living with family it's nice to have my own place with all it's flaws and lack of space. It's ours and we can do what we want with it. We can come home to a place that's comfortable and safe and just us.

2. My kids. Another standard but really, who's not thankful for their kids? Today, Cierra's off dear hunting with her Dad for the first time. I know she's probably having a blast but it's odd to not have one of my kids here, especially one of the older ones on a Saturday. Each of my kids is a blessing to me and each has their special little traits that I love about them. Yesterday when we called Cierra and Alex to see how their day went Mason talked first. He said hi to his Dad and then immediately asked to talk to Cierra. As much as he torments her and gets on her nerves I know he loves her and really misses her when she's gone. I thought it was very sweet.

3. Alex. Well, if I'm thankful for my kids then I'm also very thankful for Alex. He's such a hard worker!!! I wouldn't be able to enjoy the things I do if it wasn't for him. He does whatever he can to support this family and in return I do not have to work. (That's another day's gratitude!) When he's not at work he's working at home on projects. I sometimes get frustrated that we have so many unfinished projects but I'm grateful that he knows how to do so many things, that just means less that we pay someone else to do. I love that he is willing and excited to take Cierra hunting. I'm sure he can't wait until his boys are old enough and mature enough to go also. What fun times to spend with their Daddy!! Here's one of those days working outside back in 2006. Tractors and dirt, what could be better?

Okay, so don't expect that much explanation each day!! Right at the moment, have a little time to kill :)

So, do you need a little attitude uplift? Finding yourself a little grumpy at your situation? Just want to join in on the November Attitude of Gratitude Challenge. Go right ahead. It really is nice, go me thinking about quite a few things!!

My Scrap Room

I spent the better part of this evening cleaning and organizing my scrap room. Now that I have finished with my Halloween sewing projects and most of the baby sewing projects I feel like I need to scrapbook! I haven't done any scrapbooking in a while. I have all these projects floating around in my head that I want to do. I think I'll start with an advent calendar for Christmas though.

Scraproom before, for those who didn't see that post a LONG time ago.

Scraproom now! So much better don't ya think? I only wish I had room in there for my sewing machine. But I guess I can't be picky. :) It's so nice to have all that stuff out of my dining room!

My Pretty Scallywag

Cierra was Yellowbeard in her 5th grade play tonight. Originally she was assigned another part in the play, a "lesser character" for lack of a better term. Then the student who was going to play Yellowbeard lost his/her privilege to be in the play so Cierra got moved up. She was SO EXCITED. She was given about a week to memorize more parts and she did great! I knew a while ago that she had to have a pirate costume, way before Halloween, but I kept putting it off. So I spent yesterday sewing. At Jason Lee they also pair Choir and Marimba when they have grade level plays, so Cierra played Marimba at the start also. It was fun to see all these kids dressed as pirates playing the marimbas, too funny. The play was really cute and all the kids did really well. Check out Cierra's HUGE hoop earring. She loved it! It's probably like 3 inches in diameter, huge for Cierra.

Halloween!

On Halloween we took the kids to the Uptown Shopping Center where they do Trick-or-Treating in the afternoon. I think it's so fun to see kids in the daylight with their costumes on, and not just mine, all the kids, it's just so fun! We met up with my sister's kids too so there's some cousin pictures here also. Aren't they all so cute!! We had a nice break at home and then headed over to the church for Trunk-or-Treat. The boys had more fun sitting in the back of the car with me to hand out candy. After that we made some stops at Grandma's and friends and then did some real door to door Trick-or-Treating. The weather was so nice. Since daylight savings time was moved back it was lighter out. I think this was one of the warmest Halloweens I can remember for quite a while. Even better, Halloween was on a Friday!! I love that!

Pumpkin Carving

Spencer is so funny to watch. He sticks his tongue out when he's concentrating on something. Could be coloring, buttoning a button, or even carving a pumpkin. Then there's the knife sticking out of his pumpkin's eye. I thought it was so funny!!

Everyone carved their own pumpkins. I drew faces on the boys pumpkins and they pretty much carved them by themselves. I just had to help them get the spots they missed so they could pop out the pieces.

Pumpkins in order left to right. Harley's, Mason's with Spencer's on top, Becky's with Mason's #2 on top and Cierra's.