Thanksgiving is a time for ...

taking a nap with a full tummy:

playing with cousins:

LOTS of desserts:

And it's a time for being thankful for the tremendous blessings we enjoy each day. To name a few, I'm super grateful for so much incredibly wonderful family in the form of parents, in-laws, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc. that shower my kids with attention and me with support, and I'm grateful that we only live three hours away (although it took 7 hours to get there the day before Thanksgiving. Don't ever ask me to tell that story). I'm grateful for a quick recovery from having a baby, for a beautiful healthy baby boy, and for the best two big sisters ever. I'm grateful for the most helpful, caring husband a girl could find and I'm thankful he has a paying job. I'm grateful we found a nice area to live in and for the little things like popcorn that make my kids so happy. I'm grateful for a loving Father in Heaven that blessed me with it all!!

Faces I love

His oh-so-cute, talking-to-me faces:

His I-need-a-little-mama-cause-I'm-so-tired face:

His havin-fun-with-Mama face:

His monkey face or maybe it's a check-out-these-crazy-girls-that-just-can't-keep-their-hands-off-me face:

Can't get enough of his face!

And it kept right on snowing

Surprise surprise!! This was more than just the typical snow dusting. Much to the delight of little ones all over town, it actually added up, and suddenly a 4-day Thanksgiving weekend became a whole week off of school. Wow. And daddy even got sent home from work early so he could make it up the hill to us up the plateau. FUN TIMES!!And before we went to sleep, we peeked out the door and nearly an inch and a half more had accumulated on the chairs they'd left out. And it was 25 degrees and dropping. Brrrrr.

"I didn't know it could snow BEFORE Christmas!"

That quote is courtesy of Jenelle. Along with, "It's snowing in the Fall time. That's CRAZY!" And "Meri, you know what mommy taught me? When it gets really really cold like it does in August, then it snows." In my defense, let the record show that I never said anything about snow in August.

So the fun began as we were getting our shoes on to go out the door to church. I happened to look out the only window not covered in blinds to see it totally snowing! Surprise! The girls quickly demanded all sorts of snow gear, and we rushed out to still get there on time. By the time we got out there it was just the teeny tiny little flakes, that you can just barely see to the left of Meri in the grill of the car. See, it really was snowing :)

Ok, so you can't see the snow at all in this pic but they just looked too cute.

All throughout church and part of the day we watched beautiful flakes fall, but nothing stuck to more than the trees. This morning, the magic was back:

"I so much want to go out and touch a little little snow (Meri)." So knowing that these things don't usually last, I helped them bundle up and run outside for a few minutes of bliss. Yes, that is their nightgowns poking out of their jackets. There was no time to change. You just can't risk missing it by being practical.

And yes, we are the neighbors that still have moldy pumpkins on their porch. It's just that it's our back porch and we so rarely go out there to see them and be reminded. And now it's snowing on our Halloween pumpkins. I can't say I've seen that before.

I think I just found my excuse to not go to aerobics today. Wouldn't want to get caught out in the blizzard :) It's still going. Soon we might even be able to make a pint-sized snowball. Such a lot of excitement over a few flakes!

Isaac at 2 Months

This was taken 2 weeks ago, we just had some difficulty getting it up on the blog. So here it is, a preview of fun times to come over Thanksgiving (for those of you who we get to see)!



In the last 2 weeks he's even become smilier and talks so much more! Not to mention the ever-expanding rolls.

Sweetness

We've been looking for a preschool for Meri, and after having heard me on the phone earlier in the day, Meri randomly said in the afternoon, "Mom, are you SURE you want me to go to preschool?" I replied, "Well, sweetie, we thought you could learn lots and have fun. Why?" Little Ms. Sweetness answered, "Because if I go, you will be left all lonely." I had to jump up and give her a kiss and hug right away and assure her that I would indeed miss her but she would come back and I would be okay. It's even sweeter because when I asked her if she wanted to go to preschool she nodded emphatically and assured me that she really, really did. How adorable that she would consider giving up something she wants to do so that I wouldn't be lonely!

Happy Veteran's Day!

Check out our festive Camo-baby that is, catch this, 2 months old!!! Between dealing with that and watching Toy Story 3 for the first time with our kids (they'd seen it before and informed us what would happen, scene by scene, before it happened. Fun times), I need time to stop now! Or at least slow down a little. Please? (I tried to get the girls to agree to not grow up by using the whole you'll have to give your toys away when you're grown up. Jell shrugged and said, "I'll say goodbye to them though. No biggie mom." Great.) Anyway, with 4 babies younger than him in our ward alone, Sir Isaac has become the big kid on the block. And I do mean big kid. Check out his stats from his 2 month: 13 lbs (82%) 24 in (87%) head 16 1/2 (94%). When I laid him on the scale the nurse gave him a double look and then asked, you're here for his 2 month? Wow. Big boy. Big boy indeed! And when she asked if I had any concerns and I said, just nursing. It's like a wrestling match every time and it's driving me crazy. She replied, well, he's clearly not wasting away, so I wouldn't lose sleep worrying about it. And she's right. Check out these rolls!! We win!

Missing Halloween

Halloween is such a fun holiday with kids! I miss it already and am sad that we didn't do more for it. The whole new baby and move thing threw us off our game a bit and we didn't get to do the farm hopping we usually enjoy. While we were down in Portland for a super short visit, we did make it to one pumpkin patch with my mom. Here's the fun (although sadly I didn't take many pictures because I was holding a very sleepy Mr. Man the whole time):

Static head:

Jell was SO SO excited for the huge slide and SO uncharacteristically brave. She went half a million times because my mom had purchased a bunch of tickets and due to some seriously bad luck this was one of the only activities that was up and running. Meri wasn't so sure and had to go down with me a few times before getting up the gumbo to go by herself:

But then she squealed her little blonde head off the whole way down, jumped up and went again. And again. And again. This made up for her disappointment that there were no Meri-size pumpkins for her to get that she could hold by herself. And the puppies we got to see at the end made up for the fact that we missed the last doughnuts of the day by about 30 seconds. Breathing in their tempting goodness isn't quite the same as enjoying their calories. Oh well. We sure love sunny autumn days at pumpkin patches!

Surprise face ... and hair

This one's for daddy!