It's Not Too Late To Be Thankful

I know tomorrow is December 1st, but I wanted to take a minute to write about all of the things that I am thankful for at this time of the year.

* Prayer. I would not survive motherhood without it.
* My Heavenly Father. Only He can soften my heart and ease my burdens.
* Gage and his "Mama Loves" He always knows when I need a big hug and kiss. He is a sweet little boy.
* Maisey. She tries so hard to be a good helper for me.
* Shaun. He tries so hard to understand me even when I don't make sense. He can also give the best and longest back rubs ever! Love him!
* My mom. She does a lot of little things for our family that I'm really grateful for, like babysitting, and meal making.
* My friends. I'm grateful for the babysitting swaps and the ice cream nights!
* Baby #3. I felt it move for the first time yesterday. What an incredible feeling. Oh, and not to mention a very nice and calm pregnancy so far. knock on wood.
* Our Babysitter. We have the BEST babysitter ever, second to Grammy of course. It makes it so nice to not have to worry about the kids when we are out.

Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving. Bring on Christmas!

Our Thanksgiving Week

We didn't have any school all of last week and the little boy that I watch was out of town all week, so I really wanted to focus on my kids. We decided to something fun and out of the ordinary each day last week. I think we were pretty successful with what we came up with.

 On Monday, we headed to Grammy's school for lunch. We haven't been able to go very much the last two years because of everything we have going. So it was a fun and special treat to be able to go and meet all of her students. Maisey has been waiting to meet a specific student all year. Her name is Belle. And Gage enjoyed drawing all over the white board.

Tuesday is my laundry day, so we don't go anywhere ALL day! So we did fun things together in between folding loads and loads of laundry. The highlight of the day was making a chain counting down the days until we leave for our trip.

 On Wednesday, we had a family date night. We let Maisey choose anywhere she wanted to go for dinner and she chose Panda Express. So we ate there then headed to Pump It Up. The kids love this place, and so do I. I can just sit there and watch them entertain themselves and get really tired, then when we get home I can throw them right in bed. Daddy is a good sport to chase them all around! It was a great night.

Until the ultimate fit throwing at the end because it was time to leave. Oh well!

Thursday started off with Shaun going to play football (which on Sunday I had a few men from the other wards tell me how good my husband is at football! It was kinda sweet to hear!) while I stayed home and got the grub ready. This is my second turkey ever and it turned out beautifully! Maisey even asked for seconds! We ate our meal early so we could put the kids down for a nap.

While they were sleeping, my mom and I poured over the Black Friday ads, trying to figure out our game plan for the night and following morning.

Once the kids woke up, we took them to go see Arthur Christmas. It was a cute little movie, but Maisey was still hesitant to believe the whole Santa thing.

This was Gage's first movie. He did pretty well, granted he had the large popcorn tub on his lap the whole time. (I snapped the pic from my phone after the movie started, so there is no flash) He just looked so dang cute with his little head sticking out of the top of this BIG tub!

Then there was Black Friday. My mom and I headed to Wal-Mart a little before the 10 pm toy sale started. We did Wal-Mart, Kohls, Macy's, Target, then slept for an hour, then hit up Lowes, Bed Bath and Beyond, Fred Meyer, Staples, and Learning Palace. I got home at 8 am Friday morning. We got everything on our lists and stood in relatively short lines, minus Target. We stood in line for over 2 hours for a kindle for my mom and when we were 8 people from the front, they ran out. That was our longest line and the only thing on our lists that we didn't get. When I got home Friday morning, I ordered one thing off of Amazon, then I crossed off the last few items on my "left to buy before Christmas and our trip" list. I am completely done shopping for every single person that we have to buy a gift for! It feels nice!

A little while after I got home from shopping, we headed up to the airport to pick up Papa! He flew in for less than 24 hours to pick up a car. The kids had a blast seeing him. We sang lots of Christmas songs, played Ragedy Ann and Andy, ate at Sweet Tomatoes, and went to a Spokane Chiefs hockey game!

 Gage did not want to be in this picture!

We got home from the hockey game and the kids and I went straight to bed while Shaun and his dad watched a movie.

There were lots of tears Saturday morning after Papa left. Good thing we will see him again in 2 weeks! After things settled down a bit, we headed to Palmer's Tree Farm to pick out our Christmas tree!

 Every tree we walked by, Maisey would say, "ooooo Mommy, I like this one!"

 The kids are always up for a ride on the tree cart!

 Our fam in front of the tree. This year it only took us a few minutes to pick it out. I think it's because Shaun wanted to get back to watch a football game! Haha!

 Maisey helping Daddy cut it down.

 

 After we got home from picking out the tree, the kids took naps and I locked my bedroom door and got everything out and wrapped gifts all afternoon. And just like my "left to buy" list, I am COMPLETELY done! It's so nice to not have to stress about that.

On Sunday, we decorated the tree. The kids were so fun to watch. Most of the ornaments ended up in one little section of the tree, but that was fine by me. They were so excited about putting them on. Gage had a hard time getting the bulbs to actually hang from a branch, so he would stand there and concentrate so hard on it and when he got one to stay he would stand back and say, "Taaaa Daaaa!"

Like I said at the beginning, I'm pretty sure we accomplished the task of doing at least one fun thing a day last week! I love making these memories with my family!

Maisey Lately

Maisey has been super creative lately, which often times leads to the biggest messes! I decided to take pictures of her last creation to document it.

She set up a tea party for every stuffed animal/doll in our house. She set up all of the chairs around the ottoman. When she ran out of chairs she decided to dump out every bin of toys from the play room to use as seats for her guests.

Here is another view of her tea party.

And this is what the play room looked like after she was done setting up! Clean up was extra long that night.

To sign in at preschool, Maisey has to write her name on a white board then put it in a pocket chart. She usually hurries through it and writes whatever way she wants, which usually means all capital letters. This particular day, I told her to slow down and use lower case letters. She did such a great job!

She also found an activity in one of her coloring books and asked if I could help her do it. I helped her with the very first "P" and she did all of the rest. She would bring her book to me after each word and have me read it to her. She really enjoyed this activity!

She is also really working on learning to read. We have a set of BOB books and she can read the first 2 books in the set. She really knows the words because I will point to words in other books that I know are from her BOB books and she can read them to me. She is getting site word flash cards for Christmas and this girl will be reading in no time!

Sometimes, she is too smart for her own good. A few weeks ago, she was laying in bed and she came running into my room. She told me that there was not a real Santa Claus. I asked her why she thought that and she said she was just laying there thinking about it, and there is no way there could be one. There was no way he could fly to all the houses in the whole world. And that people can't really fly. And that there is no such thing as magic. I was surprised. Usually your oldest child believes the longest because he/she doesn't have older siblings to spoil it for them. And, she doesn't even go to school with bigger kids so it's not like somebody told her. She just figured it out on her own. She's too analytical.

So when my mom gave her the Elf on the Shelf, she wasn't too keen of the idea at first. She again told me that the elf couldn't be magic because magic was not real. I told her to just try it out for a few nights. She was very surprised but still skeptical when the elf showed up in a different spot the next morning. I'm still not sure she REALLY believes it all, but we're going along with it.

I'm just sad that my little baby girl has already lost the magic of the holiday.

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like. . .

Christmas!!!!!

And my all time favorite of this year. . . 

Our Elf

I would like you to meet our elf, Max. Grammy bought us our elf this year and at first Maisey wasn't a believer. But after the elf forgot to hide in a different place two nights in a row, we told her that maybe the elf didn't want to tell Santa the naughty things she had done that day, she started to like him more and more. She is always excited to be the first one awake and try to find his new hiding spot. And Gage, well, he could care less, and doesn't get the whole thing.

We have a winner. . .

Jenny!

She said: Living here has taught me that I love snow - I love to travel to it, play around in it, and then leave it behind when we go home!

I agree with a lot of you. I love to watch the snow from inside my house, but I don't like to have to go out in it too much.

Congrats Jenny, I'll mail it to you soon!

Giveaway ends tonight!

Today is your last chance to enter the giveaway on the post below! It ends at 11:59 pm! 

Good Luck!

Holiday Crafting + A GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!

 I've been busy this month getting things ready for Thanksgiving events, Uncle Ryan's wedding gift, and part of my mom's Christmas present. (shhhh, don't tell her!) I thought I would share a little bit of what I've been doing.

 Oreo turkeys! These are for our ward chili feed tonight!

 M & M turkeys. These were for my mom's relief society activity.

Glass etched glasses for Hannah and Ryan.

K, so I won a giveaway earlier this month from this totally awesome cooking blog! The blog is written by a mother and daughter who enjoy cooking and baking together. I love their recipes because they are usually pretty simple and always delicious!

I won a Silpat and a cookie scoop and got it in the mail last week!

So, I decided to do a little giveaway myself, to share the holiday cheer! I've never done one before and I'm really excited about it!

If you would like to win this winter charger all you need to do is comment on if you enjoy the snow!

This giveaway will close on Sunday, November 27 at 11:59 pm. 

The winner will be announced on Monday, November 28.

Help: Pulled Pork Recipe

I need a good pulled pork recipe. Something that is pretty simple, and not spicy, like not at all! Anyone have anything good out there?

Parades and Other Fun

 Maisey made a parade out of all of the characters, blocks, and legos that we have. She was so excited and she played her recorder as the Grand Marshall of the parade. She's very creative.

 Gage thought her parade was pretty cool and he was sad that he couldn't be apart of it (because he is the destroyer of all things) so the next morning he made a parade out of cereal boxes!

 He made himself a bed on the kitchen floor and said, "I go nigh-night"

 One day the kids climbed in the dryer with wet clothes in there. YUCK!

And, last but not least, Maisey got a haircut. 

She now looks like Rapunzel at the end of Tangled when her hair gets cut and turns brown.

Cathartic

I just spent the last hour playing puppy with the kids. I was the puppy. They would feed me, pet me, cover me up to sleep. They laughed. I laughed. I had laundry to fold and dinner to make but it didn't matter. It was nice to be laughing together.

Dad called for a mid-week family movie night, which NEVER happens. He is stopping to pick up pizza on his way home and we are all going to cuddle on the couch and watch Polar Express.

Aaaaand, I ate part of an ice cream sundae for lunch today, while venting. It felt good. Thanks! :)

Things will get better, I can only improve from the mistakes I've made. It's all about the attitude!

Gage and the Kitties

So our neighborhood has a lot of pets in it. Unfortunately, I am NOT a pet person. And I dislike them even more when they POOP all over my yard. It's seriously ridiculous. Anyway, my kids aren't really pet people either. Like, when the neighbor lets their two small dogs run around in the cul-de-sac, we have to go inside because BOTH kids scream and yell and cling to my legs while trying to climb up me. But one day, these two kitties (who climb up our screen door, grrrrr!) caught Gage's eye. He was really scared of them at first, but then started warming up to them.

  It started as a stare down.

 Then it lead to him chasing them.

 Then he slowly got brave enough to pet them.

And before I know it, he's saying "Wook, Mama!" as he is coming at me with one!

Another kitty story:

I loaded the kids in the car one day and left the door from the garage to the house open as I ran back inside the house to grab something. When I came back up to the front of the house to go to the car, these same two kitties were INSIDE my house!!!! Ahhhh! I had to pick them up, ewww, and take them outside. I ran back inside to wash my hands (this time I shut the door from the garage to the house) and when I came back out, the kitties had come back into the garage and were hiding under my van. I had to sweep them out from under the car with a broom just so I wouldn't run over them.

Have I ever mentioned how much I don't like animals, especially when they aren't even mine! But apparently Gage has taken a liking to these two cats.

Confession

I've been dealing with issues with my brother for the past two months and this weekend I hit my breaking point. I'm frustrated, and I'm done trying.

I yelled at Maisey tonight for biting(?) Gage's arm. Like not just a little yelling, full on yelled at her. I just had no patience left after dealing with my brother's crap. I regret every word I said.

I got on the computer to post a few posts on the blog, but instead I spent the last 2.5 hours playing solitaire while crying my eyes out.

I miss my dad. He would know how to fix everything.

I think I'm going to go lay on Maisey's bed with her and cuddle her while she sleeps. Hopefully she'll forgive me in the morning.

Here's to a better day tomorrow!

Happy Fall!

It's a MIRACLE!!!!

They are actually both smiling and looking at the camera in the same picture!