Our Thanksgiving Weekend

Whew! What a fun, busy weekend we've had! On Thursday morning, Jonathan ran the Turkey Trot 10k. It was a beautiful morning, and we were all there at the finish line cheering him on. I remembered my camera, but the battery was dead. But Jonathan did great. Later that afternoon, we went to Jonathan's mom's house for a beautiful and delicious Thanksgiving meal. Isn't' the table setting pretty?!

I didn't get a picture of the whole family, and I really wish I would have. But all of Jonathan's siblings were there except Gregg, who stayed in Utah. The girls had a blast playing with their cousins and the adults chatted and watched the kiddos. And again, the meal was fabulous.

Then Friday morning, I had to get out and do a bit of shopping for Jonathan. I didn't enjoy the shopping mayhem, so I was out for a few hours and then came home. Later that evening, our friends Colby, Suzanne and Julia came over for dinner and Suzanne and I made their family Christmas card on photoshop. It was really fun. And before we knew it, it was Saturday morning. Once again, we got up early. Jonathan left at 6 am to go to Arizona City. It is his brother's birthday and Jeremy wanted to go on a hike for his b-day. So Jeremy, Jonathan, and sister Tami all went hiking. I love this picture of them. I am so glad that Jonathan is friends with his family.After the hike, the girls and I rode with Grandma Trish to Arizona City for a lunch/party for Jeremy. The girls LOVED playing with their cousins, for the second time in three days!

This is Elizabeth. Isn't she a doll?! And she's as sweet as she looks. She is a year older than Sami, and they are really starting to play like good friends.
And this is Andrew. He's 18 months, and the only boy among all the girlies this weekend, poor little guy :). Cutie pie.

Here's Elizabeth and Sami sharing some cousinly love.

The kids were putting on this shape sorter and calling it a hat. Very creative. And even cuter.

I think you already know how I feel about these two :). They hold my heart. But there's one missing...

Oh, there she is. Yes, I love my little family.

I am so grateful for a holiday where we get a reminder about how blessed we are, and we should be grateful. The Lord has really showed me lately how truly blessed I am. I wish I never complained. But I do. So I'm working on "living in thanksgiving daily (Alma 34:38)." I am so grateful for my wonderful family, and my truly blessed life.

A bit of nostalgia...

Jonathan was organizing our digital pictures on our computer this weekend, and we both got a little nostalgic looking at all that's happened these past two years. The kids change so fast it's easy to forget what they were like as newborns. Thank goodness for pictures!

This was when we were in NC. We were driving with Sami from the hospital, and she had just become ours. This is the first time she had ever been in a car. She was dressed by her birth mom, and I have the dress and bow tucked away for her.

I forgot how yummy her cheeks were. As an infant, Sami had pretty severe eczema. She would scratch her face up until it bled. I didn't know what to do. I kept her hands in mittens and kept her nails trimmed as best I could. And then Heavenly Father sent me wonderful visiting teachers who had had babies with the same problem. They told me to only give her bath twice a week and they told me what ointments to apply. Within a week, her skin improved dramatically and now we don't have a problem with it at all.

My girls have always loved food.

Then Janie joined the fun. I forgot how long and skinny she was as a newborn. They change so fast.

This picture always cracks me up. My mother-in-law loved this picture of Janie so she had it printed and put it up on a collage of pictures of all her grand kids. One day I was looking at it and realized that Janie has a boogie coming out her nose, but you can only see it on the big picture. Good thing she changes out her pictures every year.

Time flies. Now my girls are all over the place...playing, giggling, and fighting over toys. We just hope they don't ever fight over boys.

As you can see, by three p.m., the bows are out and so is the hair. The shirts have food on them leftover from lunch and my house is covered with toys. But I don't mind so much, most of the time (I admit that sometimes I just have to clean the girls up and fix their hair. I don't know why because it just gets back to this after dinner).

I just love having little girls!

The story of my hearing problem

One day last week, Jonathan was listening to music and the girls were dancing. Jonathan asked me a question, and I asked him to turn down the music because I couldn't hear. I think he was a little annoyed at first, but then I explained that my hearing in my left ear had been really bad and that I thought I was losing my hearing. Well, that freaked him out. He immediately starting looking in my ear with a flashlight and said that the problem was that I had too much wax buildup (gross, I know). So he start digging my ear with this little medical thing that he used on kids when he worked peds. But since that night, I have had ringing in my ears. It's more like a constant hum. So every night, Jonathan would put Debrox in my ear (it's a liquid that helps clean out the ears, you can get it at any drug store) and then rinse it out. And it helped, but it never got completely better and I always had the hum.

But last night Jonathan brought home an otoscope. It's the thing with the light that doctors use to look in your ear at the doctor's office. And he cleaned out my ears so good that I can hear EVERYTHING now! I didn't know how loud the keyboard is or how loud the fans are in the girls' rooms. Jonathan said I used to talk really loud on the phone. It's because I couldn't hear! And there is no damage on my ear drum, thank goodness.

So, I learned three lessons. One, don't ever use q-tips in your ears. I haven't used them in a while, but I didn't realize the damage they had done when I used them in the past. Lesson two is that Debrox is amazing. I will always use that now instead of q-tips. And three, I take my health and body for granted. I love to hear! But I didn't realize how much until I thought I was losing it. I am so thankful to Heavenly Father for my working ears. And I am thankful for a husband who is always willing to help me and takes such good care of me.

When the kids are in bed...

When people find out that our kids go to bed at 6 pm, the first question they ask is what time do they get up in the morning. Answer: 6:30 am. Do they actually go to to sleep at 6? Answer: Yes. It's wonderful! The next question is usually something like "What do you do with all that time when the kids are asleep?" Well, it depends. I clean from 6-7. It takes an hour to do the dishes and pick up the toys. Sometimes I dust or mop and once in a (rare) while, I clean the bathrooms. If it's Tuesday, I watch Biggest Loser (I don't know what it is about watching people work out to the point of exhaustion that makes me crave ice cream.) If it's Wednesday, I go to mutual (I'm the YW secretary). Sometimes I go to Wal-Mart. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I watch old TV shows like Andy Griffeth, Matlock, and Hogan's Heroes. But what I really like to do is work in Photoshop, creating layouts. I'm working on books highlighting the past year for each of the girls. I'm not a pro, by any means, it's just a fun hobby.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I do take shortcuts when making my layouts. I love templates, they save a lot of time. I also like quick pages. These are pages that are made by someone else and I just plug in the journaling and pictures (the first and fifth layouts are examples of quick pages.) For me, the most important thing is that it's a creative outlet and a fun way to express how much I love my family.

More Pictures

Last night I was looking at my previous post and realized that some of the family pictures I posted were way over pixelated. I wanted them to be big, but I did something wrong somewhere as I was loading and tweeking their size, so I am loading these normally. While they are not big and bold, so to speak, I still really like them :).

This picture says "I'll love you until the day after forever." I got the word art from here.

Some Family Pictures

I love family pictures! I love that I have a family to take pictures of! Here's some pics that my friend Kristen took that I am finally posting. She gave them to me over a week ago but I have been busy with other projects and am finally now getting them edited. If the pictures look a little weird, it's because I edited them and I am a self-taught Photoshop amateur (Kristen is a talented photographer so the problem is all mine.)

The Flower and The Bee

I think Halloween is okay. Jonathan loves it. And now Sami loves it. It was so fun hearing her say "tickateat" to everyone. And of course everyone oohed and aahed over how cute she and Janie were. We wanted to go with a garden theme. Sami was a flower, Janie was a bee, and we were going to be gardeners. But I didn't get the garden outfits together, so I wore orange and Jonathan wore black and spiked his hair. He was hoping I had some paint to spray his hair with, but obviously I didn't. I'll shop the clearance isle this week and have some ready for next year.

We started the afternoon over at our ward Trunk Or Treat, and then went over to Jonathan's sister's for another dinner and more trick or treating, but this time from door to door. Both girls loved it. Yes, this was my favorite Halloween ever! Have you ever seen a cuter flower or bee in your life?!!