Feathers Full of Gratitude

This year Tom's feathers expressed our thankfulness for chairs, grass, world, church, tires, my dad, car, medicine, family, service, my job, Matty, Jossy, fall leaves, new baby, Tom the Turkey, trees, love, health, temple, sun, Spiderman, animals, and tape.

Thanks for visiting, Tom. We'll see you next year!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

The Great "Blizzard"

We were supposed to get hit with this terrible blizzard tonight. Here's how things looked after the storm was mostly passed over:


Yep, apparently my city lives in a black hole (as one friend said) because I saw maybe a couple flakes all night and that was it! Salt Lake apparently had terrible conditions and the freeway to Idaho even closed, but here . . . nothing! It's hard looking out my window and not thinking "Why aren't we on our way to Idaho?" but conditions are much worse elsewhere, so I know it's good we're not out there right now.

Anyway, in our preparations for this "big storm" we thought we'd do something fun with the kids, so after the their baths tonight we microwaved some s'mores. Storm or not, we had a fun time together and they were YUMMMMMY!! This pregnant tummy might have had more than a few. ;)

Now tell me, in what world does THIS classify as a smile???
I told her to smile, but she looks like she's ready to attack and eat me!! LOL

17.5

I figured I should give a little pregnancy update for those who care to know.

I'm 17.5 weeks now (and that half a week is important, just ask any woman who's been through this.) Our ultrasound is scheduled in a little less than 3 weeks. I'm so excited to find out the gender of this baby. Matty wants a brother so badly, so for that reason I think a boy would be a relief to me because it wouldn't disappoint Matty. But Dan and I have been thinking this might be a girl. I'm working on getting Matty to accept the possibility of that. One day when we were talking about it he said, "But I already have a sister." I said, "I have THREE of them!" He quickly responded with wide eyes and a hushed voice saying, "That's awful!" LOL I really don't care about one gender over the other, I'm always just happy to be blessed with a healthy baby. If you ask Jossy if the baby is a boy or a girl she just says, "It's a BIG baby!" Great. That little girl better not be jinxing me!

I feel the baby move occassionally, but it's so gentle and light it's hard to tell. It's kind of disappointing to not feel it any stronger. I didn't feel Matty til 19 weeks, but I was only 14 when I started feeling Jossy. I guess I thought I'd feel it early like that again, but it turns out that my placenta is in the front this time . . . just like with Matty. Guess that's acting as a kicking buffer for the baby so I can't feel it very much yet.

I finally took a belly picture tonight.


I love looking back at these, but hate taking them when I'm pregnant. I only took ONE when I was pregnant with Matty, and that was one week before I delivered so I have no idea how big I was at different stages of pregnancy. I took consistent photos during Jossy's pregnancy, but with this one I just haven't wanted to. To be completely honest here (I'm among friends, right?) getting bigger has been a lot harder on me this time. With all 3 kids, I lost weight before getting pregnant and had to watch that come back on plus some, but this time it was such a significant loss that for the first time (pretty much ever) I was starting to feel good about my size and how I looked. I was even just 10 lbs away from my ultimate goal weight. So watching my waistline disappear has been a ton harder for me than the other two times. I know it sounds vain and silly, but that's the truth.

Other than demanding cravings, a ridiculous sweet tooth, bouts of extreme exhaustion, and some silly girl mood swings, I guess I'm doing all right. My poor husband has to put up with a lot. Good thing he has a poor memory or I don't think he'd ever have been willing to have a pregnant wife again. ;)

Oh, and one more picture to show though it's not pregnancy related. I'm never even close to happy with the self portraits I take, but this one actually makes me feel good about myself. When you're a hormonal pregnant lady, that's a significant accomplishment. :) I took this one last night after I got back from the benefit concert.

Sometimes . . .

. . . you just feel better about life if you can watch a movie with shorts on your head.

She came up to me like this after naptime and said, "Look, Mom! My fireman!" She thinks everything she puts on her head makes her a fireman because of Matty's Halloween costume.

What's even funnier is she left those shorts on her head for about 3 hours.

Concert Reminder

Here's your reminder that the benefit concert for my friend Ruth who's battling cancer is TOMORROW NIGHT!!! That's Saturday, November 13th at 7:30 PM in Pleasant Grove Junior High School's auditorium.

Please attend if you can! It will be an entertaining night and you'll be supporting a wonderful family who can use your help.

THANKS!!!

A Lesson From Elspeth Young

I tend to try to steer clear of the blog when I'm in a particularly sour mood (like tonight), but I want to quickly write about Stake Enrichment this morning.

The artist Elspeth Young came and spoke. Much of her paintings are about women in the Bible. She talked some about her history, inspiration for her paintings, and life lessons she's learned through them. The kids were with me so I wasn't able to catch everything that was said as I broke up fights over colored pencils and tried to keep the cracker crumb mess to a minimum, but one story I enjoyed was as she talked about this painting:

The Trial of Faith

She explained how things weren't going well painting this as she was trying to get the hands right and other aspects of it. She was frequently frustrated to tears over the painting. She said when it was all said in done, it was bar none THE hardest piece of work she's ever painted . . . and also her favorite, probably because of how difficult the experience was. Then she said something that hit me enough I typed it into my phone word for word so I could remember it: "The moments that are the hardest become the most dear."

It made me think about my children, how hard the days are sometimes (like every day this week) and how easy it is to wish these days away. But I know when diapers and messes are gone, fruit snacks are no longer stuck to my couch, and I can actually take a nap without being woken up 10 times I'll look back and see this time with little ones in my home as some of my most precious and loved. (At least, that's the hope.)

The View at Night

This is the view we see every night after bath time. Matty doesn't like to leave the room until he's had a chance to watch the whirlpool from the tub drain disappear, and Jossy is eager to follow his lead.




Many nights this view involves two very cute full moons, but we don't want to show those off to the world. :)

Holding Her Back

Sometimes I feel bad that I still make Jossy sit in a high chair. She's 2 1/2 after all.


But then she kindly reminds me why I keep it around.

At least the mess is enjoyable to someone.

Riding Off Into the Sunset

For FHE tonight, it was Matty's turn to choose our activity after the lesson. He wanted to put on a play of Rapunzel. Um . . . okay.

Nobody here knows the story that well, but we had some laughs in the 3 minutes that we attempted to act it out.

I loved watching Rapunzel ride off into the sunset with her prince on his Samoan horse. :)


(I'm not sure if the horse was too happy to have been assigned this role after a long and tiring day, but he did it anyway. That's why I love him.)

Haircuts All Around

Cutting hair for Dan and the kids is not my favorite thing, but it saves money so I do it. Matty was in desperate need of one the last couple weeks, and I finally got around to it before church on Sunday. I told him to come upstairs to get his hair cut, but Jossy beat him up there and demanded she get her hair cut, too. She always wants one anytime Matty gets one, but we always manage to talk her out of it or distract her. Well she's getting more stubborn as she grows up and refused to be put off this time. So I finally talked Dan into letting me just trim a bit off.

Jossy was excited to stand on the stool like Matty and even demanded the cape be put on. Getting her to hold still was another story.

I love the look of fear/distrust here. LOL I swear she was excited and wanted this.



Before

After

Really, it was just a little trim to even up those baby hairs. It made me sad to cut them at all, but her hair looks much neater now.

Matty on the other hand, needed more that just a tiny trim . . .
He's been "blessed" with his dad's unruly hair.

Much better!

Since I was saving Jossy's hair from her "first haircut" for her baby book, Matty wanted me to save some of his, too.

Bet you'll never guess which is whose. ;)

The Return of Tom

We're a little late getting Tom our Thankful Turkey up this year, but better late than never! It's been a crazy, busy week. I finally got around to cutting out his feathers today so we just played a little catch-up to get him to day 7.


For those who might be new to the blog or who don't know who Tom is, this is his 4th visit to our house. He comes during the month of November bare as can be. We take turns and each night write something one person is thankful for on one of his feathers and place it on him from the 1st of the month until Thanksgiving Day at which point he has a beautiful plumage of thankfulness! Tom came about because I was sick of stores going straight from Halloween to Christmas, so I wanted to do something in my own home to help us remember to be thankful in the month of November and look forward to Thanksgiving. It's always been fun seeing the things the kids say. Today Matty was thankful for tires and the world, while Jossy said the temple and Matty (both her own ideas, we didn't help her at all!)

We're happy to have Tom back on the wall for the month. :)

Making Due

No need to buy a slinky dog like in Toy Story when you can just build your own! He thought of this by himself, drew the pictures, and taped it together all while I was napping yesterday. What a clever boy!

Benefit Concert!!

I have a wonderful friend named Ruth who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer which has been deemed terminal. She's been fighting it with an amazing attitude, and we all have hope that she has many wonderful years ahead of her thanks to the blessings of modern medicine. However, we all know that those life-saving treatments don't come free.

Therefore, there will be a benefit concert next Saturday, November 13th, at 7:30 PM held at Pleasant Grove Junior High with all proceeds going to help Ruth pay for her treatments. If you live anywhere near, please consider coming for a night a beautiful music and other entertainment. (I'll be one of the performers, and it's my first non-church performance since college! Yikes!)

To read more about who Ruth is and the concert, click on the image below. If you can't attend for whatever reason but would still like to donate to a fund for her, you can do so by clicking on this link.

Thanks so much! I'll be posting another reminder next week!!

Our 2nd Childhood

Being a parent come with a lot of serious, important and often overwhelming responsibilities . . . but there's also lots of chances to be a kid again.

On Sunday we decided since we didn't have any leaves to play in on our lawn, we'd go where the leaves are. For us, that's a local park. We bundled up, grabbed a rake and the camera, and headed out the door after church and dinner.

I don't think I even need to say how much fun the kids had. But Dan and I had a pretty great time, too.

We took 125 pictures. We played until it was too dark to play anymore. And we had one of the best times our family has ever had together. All for free.

As we drove away, we were privileged to witness this most amazing sunset.
It doesn't get much more perfect than that!