Thanksgiving at Our Place

We had a fun Thanksgiving this year with most of my family gathering at my place.  I'm sure everyone loves having Thanksgiving at my place with my crazy kids the most particularly because they get very loving wake up calls every morning.


Monday night before everyone else arrived Mom, George, and my little family had dinner at Lily's.  I made butternut squash soup with all the butternut squash various neighbors had brought me.  Then, we had and a little Thanksgiving FHE which involved reading a scripture story about how before Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes he first thanked Heavenly Father for the small amount that they had.  Then, we read Over the River and Through the Woods.  Lily played some Native American pan flute music while we did a weaving craft.

Mom and George planned their vacation perfectly, they were able to catch the boy's birthday and participate in Grandparent's Day at Liv's school.
 Combined with Steve and Diane, Liv was lucky enough to have 2 sets of Grandparents there to support her.

We introduced Mom to the new all together playground in Orem.

Aunt Kylie arrived Wednesday afternoon.  She came baring gifts.  She made all the kids practice saying, "I love it!  It's just what I always wanted!"  Over and over before they actually opened their presents so they would know the appropriate response when the time came.  The boys really did love their rudolph pajamas.  They insisted on wearing them to pajama day at their school.

The Day before Thanksgiving is pie day in my mind, so I spent the day making 3 kinds of pie.  A chocolate satin pie, 2 pumpkins, and one pecan (which we never had growing up but have all grown to love the last few years).
 All of us noted how much everyone in our family loves whipped cream.  It seems we all dish up a 2:1 whipped cream:pie ratio.  We also made whatever else we could before the big turkey day.  On Thanksgiving morning, this was the first year in a long time that I didn't go on a run thanks to my still recovering from ACL surgery knee.  We spent the day cooking up the turkey and dinner.

 Here's Carter enjoying the turkey neck as a pre-dinner snack.  

We actually ate at about 1 pm.  Derek carved the turkey.

Liv claimed a turkey leg.

Then, Derek took the kids to his family Thanksgiving party.  All of my family went on a good long walk, then we played game after game until Derek and the kids got home.  Friday morning we all hiked the Y.

We chose that one in hopes to avoid snow and muddy trails.  Ugh I hate that hike, so steep and ugly.  I guess you do it for the view?

All 3 of our kids climbed the whole thing themselves (but there was definitely some complaining on the way up).   We took lots of breaks.

Dang Carter threw one of Derek's hiking poles down a cliff just to see what would happen.  Luckily, Uncle Nathan scaled down to retrieve it.  Then, all the girls got massages.  Somewhere in there the kids decorated gingerbread houses.  The hardest part about them was putting them together so they wouldn't fall apart.  Luckily George seemed to be some kind of mastermind at this.

 Saturday, Benazir treated us all to dumplings.  She's the best...they are no simple task!

 Everyone gobbled them up so fast and Nathan made us Lepeshka bread to go with them.  
Nay, Benz and Ky all headed home Saturday night and Mom and George left Sunday morning.  However, before Mom and George left Mom had somehow got Tyler Thorsted to commit to making us his famous waffles for breakfast the last time she was in town.  I'm not complaining...

The Boys Turn 4

It's hard for me to watch my babies growing up.  We kept their birthday pretty simple this year.  I sorta feel bad because at their age Liv was already inviting the whole neighborhood to her huge birthday parties.  But, even if I asked them what friends they would want to invite to a birthday party for them, they would just list all of Livi's friends.  The only request for a theme I got from them was cars.  They brought all their friends at school these little cars as a "treat."  It said, "We're Wheelie excited you could celebrate our birthday with us!  Love, Camden and Carter."

On their actual birthday we woke up to the first snow of the year, so that was a fun surprise.

Camden was pretty excited about the legos we got him and Carter loved the new puzzles.


I told the boys they could either choose to go to the zoo or Chuck E Cheese.  Camden tried to negotiate saying, "how about for Carter's birthday we go to the zoo, and for mine we go to Chuck E Cheese."  The weather sort of decided for us.  Instead of the zoo, we opted to go up to Derek's sister's house to meet their brand new kitten.



The kids loved the kitten, but I think they enjoy Aunt Stephanie's toys even more.  Then, we hijacked Chase and made him come to Chuck E Cheese with us since Dad had a late meeting that night.

 Camden was so excited when Chuck E Cheese came out to greet everyone, but Carter was terrified of the big mouse.  He wanted to go home and clung to me like his life depended on it.

We celebrated their birthday the Sunday after the 17th with all the family and Babi and Papou were in town as well so that was an added bonus.  Diane went with the request for car theme and made the boys this cute little race track cake.  

I love this picture of Camden looking longingly at the cake.  He couldn't wait to sing and blow out candles and dive into that so he could open his presents.  

Miscellaneous Fall Festivities

CARTER

He's my organizer and likes to make lines of cars across the floor (or lines of books, or movies, or other toys).

He makes a pretty princess to his Dad's dismay.

He's supposed to spend 2 hours of every day in this eye patch to try to strengthen his weaker R eye that he is starting to ignore which makes his lazy eye harder and harder to ignore.

He's still our most mischievous little devil- I had to climb up on top of the car to get him down from here and he has become a bit of an exhibitionist lately particularly when Liv has friends over and loves to chase the girls around naked threatening to pee on them (sometimes Camden joins in with that), he gets into my sugar container or the powdered chocolate milk eating it freely with a spoon when no one is watching and making a mess along the way, he spilled the entire dog food container all over the garage the other day, and he was so kind to come get me to proudly display the little potion he had made in my kitchen sink when he plugged it up filled it and dumped Christmas tree feed and an array of spices.  Just yesterday on the way home from church our next door neighbors said they got a kick out of watching Carter chase London over to their front yard yesterday, watch her pee on their grass, and then pull his own pants down and pee on their grass too.  Ugh- how do you teach a kid that it's ok for dogs to pee on the grass but not them?
And this just in...when we picked him up from school today, his teacher informed us that they had a little incident with Carter biting someone's face.  It was hard to get a clear story because Camden was interjecting the whole time about how this kids wasn't being nice and deserved it.

CAMDEN

This kid loves the car wash and begs to go almost every time we are driving around town.

 Also, he generally insisted on bringing his stuffed animals (or pets as he refers to them) everywhere with him.  He keeps sneaking them into his school bag and his teacher finally talked to me about how they would prefer they left them at home.

I'm lacking in Camden pictures so I will throw in a few joint ones with his.
The boys took some great school pictures this year.  This is my version.  The actual school pics came back is slightly more disheveled hair.

We discovered the coolest swing at a new park that all 3 kids can ride on while Liv pumps which requires no effort on my part.  Love it!

One day I took the kids to the park and rather than play most of the time they preferred to cuddle with me on our picnic blanket.

OLIVIA

Loves to hang with friends and I captured this cute picture of her and Chelsea walking down the street holding hands.

Her favorite friend she has made in kindergarten is the most adorable little down syndrome boy she sits next to named Leo.  They have been having regular Friday play dates alternating between each others houses and her writing journal for school is filled with entries about Leo.  This is from one day when we had Leo and also Cooper from our neighborhood who is also in their class over.  They are working together coloring pages of a book.

Liv has been really into doing her own hair lately.

This was Liv on the Hippie themed day of school during spirit week, kind of a hippie vampire cross.

 And Liv's latest favorite past time seems to be cutting out paper costumes and then taping them to herself.  and we have a papers and tape shortage over here to prove it.  Here she is a flying unicorn.

And I love this picture.  Most of the time Liv seems to be way too grown up to me, but one day she fell asleep in my bed during the middle of the day which almost never happens and this picture reminds me that she is still little in some ways.

ME

I finally got around to canning salsa and took this embarrassing picture while I was trying to survive all the onion chopping.

And the big news for me is that I have a big job change coming up.  Dr. Preston decided to cut back his schedule and hire a new full time PA which also required him to cut my time down to just one morning a week to accommodate.   I had just got what I thought was the perfect schedule working 9-12 M/W/F while all my kids were in school, and I didn't have to pay for daycare for the first time.  The worst part of it all was that he notified me in a typed note addressed to the entire staff informing them of the new hire.  I spent a couple days crying and yelling out of sadness and anger. I had 4 different interviews and have finally committed to continue Wednesday morning with Dr. Preston and have accepted a job with Dr. Gill in general surgery on Monday and Friday morning.  And amazingly, he's going to try to have me off by 11:30 both days so I get home to my kids after school.  I have always hoped that I could somehow find a way to do surgery and family practice both because I honestly loved scrubbing in and miss it often.  But, the family practice schedule seemed a little better when we were starting our family, and I was too afraid to get into a specialty out of school in fear that I would forget all I had learned.  So, looking back I sort of wonder if this was a blessing in disguise...Dr. Preston decreasing my hours right when a very nice general surgeon willing to train someone who has spent the last 8 years in family practice is looking to hire someone so part time.  I am currently just waiting on hospital privileges which will take 90-120 days, so I probably won't start until February or March of next year.  I'm getting kind of excited though and just want to be scrubbing in already.

DEREK

Same ol' same ol'.  Working hard trying to make partner and serving as president of various clubs and in the elders quorum.  Watching and attending endless sporting events...the usual.

Cubs Win!

It was so fun that the Cubs had a good team this year.  The Cubs had to play the Giants in the playoffs which led to some confused kids.  

I dressed the boys in their Cubs gear for one of the games, then Derek made sure to get up and dress them in Giants stuff for the next game.
 When asked who they wanted to win the Cubs or the Giants the boys would say..."The Cubs and the Giants."  Luckily, the Cubs won and they definitely deserved it.  It was an intense world series. At one point the Cubs were down 3-1 games and I was sure they were gonna choke, but they pulled through and made it to game 7.  The kids and I watched game 6 together while Derek was out on Elder's Quorum visits.  The Cubs dominated this game.  At one point they had the bases loaded and only 1 out.  As Shane Victorino got up to bat, I told the kids about how the best thing that can happen in baseball is a grand slam.  I told them what it meant to have the bases loaded and what a home run was.  And, I told them that if this batter hit a home run in would be a grand slam and that would be really cool.  And what do you, he totally hit a grand slam.  Because I hyped it up so much me and the kids all shouted and danced around the kitchen with glee (and snapped a picture to remember the moment).

 Game 7 was so intense.  Derek and I out the kids to bed and watched that one together.  The Cubs started the game in the lead and I thought they had it in the bag, but then the Indians tied the game and at the end of inning 9 the game was tied 6-6.  Then, it started to rain and they pulled the tarps on the field for a 17 minute rain delay.  I was sure at this moment that the curse of the goat was real and the cubs were going to lose after all, but they came back from the rain delay and dominated in the top of the 10th scoring two runs leaving the score at 8-6. The Indians gave me a panic when they scored 1 run and had another on base and still one more out was needed.  But they got the 3rd out and the Cubs won!  I can't even describe the elation of watching the cubs win a world series after 108 years.  It was so incredible.  I texted my Dad to discuss the amazing series.  He took a while to respond and then wrote back that he had just finished crying (Ha ha that Giants fan is a true lovers of the game and knew what a historic win this was).